Writer Aaron Sorkin (“The West Wing,” “Steve Jobs”) has been itching to direct a movie for a long time now. In fact the original plan was for Sorkin to direct “The Social Network,” but when David Fincher was interested, Sorkin was happy to step aside. He’s finally getting his own film to write and direct. Sorkin’s been working on his directorial debut “Molly’s Game” and tonight The Mark Gordon Company announced the lead cast in Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba.
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“Molly’s Game” is the true story of Molly Bloom (Chastain), a beautiful, young, Olympic-class skier who ran the world’s most exclusive high-stakes poker game for a decade before being arrested in the middle of the night by 17 FBI agents wielding automatic weapons. Her players included Hollywood royalty, sports stars, business titans and finally, unbeknownst to her, the Russian mob. Her only ally is her criminal defense lawyer (Elba), who learns that there’s much more to Molly than the tabloids lead us to believe.
Sorkin adapted the screenplay from Molly Bloom’s memoir of the same name. The film also marks the award-winning screenwriter’s directorial debut. eOne and The Mark Gordon Company are financing the feature, and Mark Gordon is producing with Amy Pascal via her Pascal Pictures banner.
“The casting of Jessica and Idris in the two lead roles is any filmmaker’s dream come true,” Sorkin said in a statement. “They’re two of the greatest actors of their generation, paired for the first time, and their chemistry will be electric.” I’d pencil this one in for an awards season release, but at this point in the year, probably not until fall 2017, unless Sorkin is an especially fast first-timer.