Fincher to direct Pawn Sacrifice

While eyeing up The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo remake as a potential directing project, David Fincher has first signed on to helm Pawn Sacrifice .

That’s pawn, not prawn (which is how our Monday morning eyes originally read it). The flick will follow the life story of chess champion Bobby Fischer, who is considered to be one of the best chess players ever to have lived.

Oh, and he was also a bit of an idiot. Fischer was overjoyed at the 9/11 attacks, calling them "wonderful news”, while going on to express his hope that it would lead to the deaths of “hundreds of thousands of American Jewish ring-leaders”.

Steven Eastern Promises Knight has written the screenplay. Fincher will be making the flick over at Columbia, who are reportedly impressed with the last film he forged for them – The Social Network , which tells the story behind the making of Facebook.

It’ll be an interesting challenge for Fincher, with a distinctly dislikeable lead who is part genius, part moron. If anybody can pull it off, though, it's the guy behind the awesome murder-mystery-where-the-mystery-is-never-solved Zodiac .

Fincher does Fischer... Thoughts?

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.