The Queen’s Gambit was an unexpected hit for Netflix with over “55 million households” watching the chess drama in its first four weeks of release. There likely won’t be a second season, nor should there be, but star Anya Taylor-Joy and co-creator Scott Frank are already working on their next project together: an adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s 1932 novel, Laughter in the Dark. (“Laughter in the dark” also describes me every time Benny was on screen.)
While appearing on The Ringer‘s The Watch podcast, Frank said, “It’s a great book and it’s going to be a valentine to movies, I’m going to do it as a film noir. The book is more about art and paintings, but I’m going to make it more of a movie within a movie. It’s a really nasty, wonderful, little thriller.” Laughter in the Dark is about a middle-aged married art critic who becomes enamored with a 17-year-old girl, presumably played by Taylor-Joy; it’s a theme Nabokov would revisit decades later with his best-known work, Lolita.
Frank has twice been nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay (Out of Sight and Logan), while Taylor-Joy deserved an Oscar nominated for her performance in The Witch, and might get one for Emma. Even a big, dumb chess idiot can say that this is an exciting pairing… as long as, again, they don’t make more The Queen’s Gambit. It’s good as is!
(Via IndieWire)