Scott Frank was one of those celebrated writer/directors who, for years, couldn’t get that many projects off the ground. For years, Steven Soderbergh talked about a Western Frank had written that he thought was brilliant, but wouldn’t personally touch with a 100-ft pole because he was afraid of horses. But he would periodically remind studios it was an amazing script worth making. Then came the gold rush of the streaming wars and Soderbergh took the project to Netflix when they were in need of content. The rest is history and the Western turned into Frank’s excellent and super underrated2017 limited series, “Godless.” Well, this relationship’s turned out fruitful because Frank is back with a new limited series, “The Queen’s Gambit.”
READ MORE: The 60 Most Anticipated TV Shows Of 2020
And he’s got a terrific new star with him in Anya Taylor-Joy, known for “The Witch,” “New Mutants,” “Thoroughbreds,” the recent Jane Austen “Emma” adaptation and soon, Edgar Wright‘s upcoming horror film “Last Night in Soho.” “The Queen’s Gambit,” tells the story of a young girl in the 1950s that discovers she has an unusually high aptitude for chess. Unfortunately, she also has an unusually high demand for painkillers, and eventually booze as well. As you might imagine, the combination of both leads to an interesting story of an orphaned girl trying to prove her worth as a competitive chess player while also battling her inner demons.
READ MORE: Anya Taylor-Joy Talks ‘Emma,’ Working With Director Autumn De Wilde & More [Interview]
Joining Taylor-Joy in the cast is director/actor Marielle Heller, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Moses Ingram, Harry Melling, and Bill Camp. Frank serves as co-creator, producer, writer, director, and showrunner. The man is a prodigy of sorts himself.
Here’s the synopsis:
Based on the novel by Walter Tevis, the Netflix limited series drama The Queen’s Gambit is a coming-of-age story that explores the true cost of genius. Abandoned and entrusted to a Kentucky orphanage in the late 1950s, a young Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy) discovers an astonishing talent for chess while developing an addiction to tranquilizers provided by the state as a sedative for the children. Haunted by her personal demons and fueled by a cocktail of narcotics and obsession, Beth transforms into an impressively skilled and glamorous outcast while determined to conquer the traditional boundaries established in the male-dominated world of competitive chess.
“The Queen’s Gambit” arrives on Netflix on October 23. You can watch the first official trailer below.