This year, Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit — the period sensation about a young woman chess prodigy — made history as the streaming service's most-viewed scripted limited series ever. And in 2020, if you happen to do anything that isn’t cursed, it’s probably a good idea to keep rolling with it.
That’s likely what the show’s co-creator Scott Frank is banking on with his next move. According to an interview with The Ringer’s The Watch podcast, Frank is developing an adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s 1932 novel Laughter in the Dark, for the big screen, with his Queen's Gambit pièce de résistance Anya Taylor-Joy to star.
In the podcast, Frank called the project “a really nasty, wonderful, thriller." Though that sounds like a far cry from Taylor-Joy's most recent film project — the bright, high-energy Emma. — the moody Queen's Gambit and her tormented character Beth Harmon seem like more of a stepping stone to this upcoming film noir. Nabokov's novel, which served as the basis for his most famous work, 1955's Lolita, tells the story of middle-aged art critic Albert Albinus, who takes an interest in a a 17-year-old aspiring actress and model named Margot Peters (Taylor-Joy), and the two form an unhealthy, parasitic relationship.
Between this dark turn and Taylor-Joy's action-packed upcoming role as Furiosa (played by Charlize Theron in 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road) in a new Mad Max spinoff, it seems like the actress is really stretching her boundaries and capitalizing on this year's major career turning point. Stay booked and busy, queen.