Netflix Turned Down Giant Hit Follow-Up According To Creator
The Queen’s Gambit has been a huge hit for Netflix, but according to its creator, Scott Frank, the streamer turned down three more projects he proposed after its success.
Despite the worldwide success of The Queen’s Gambit and the broad critical acclaim of Godless, Netflix was not the light touch one might expect when Frank had new projects he wanted to embark upon.
The Rejected Projects
One of his proposed projects was a film noir adaptation of the novel Laughter in the Dark, a 1938 work by Vladimir Nabokov, Frank’s version of which was sent to make the often-sidelined femme fatale character the main focus of the story. Netflix’s reason for turning this project down is not known, but since it focuses on an art critic in his middle age who becomes obsessed with a girl of only 17, the Lolita-adjacent vibe might have scared the streamer off.
Significantly, the proposed adaptation was to star Anya Taylor-Joy, who rose to stardom with The Queen’s Gambit, as the aforementioned femme fatale. Frank has even been co-writing the script for the adaptation with screenwriter and novelist Megan Abbott, but the project is still seeking a green light. Additionally, Netflix passed on two other projects from Frank, though details of those proposals have not been made public.
The name Scott Frank might not be familiar to some, but the creator of the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit is busy making a name for himself as a writer and director. He is well regarded and widely known among many in the entertainment industry, including filmmakers such as Tony Gilroy and Stephen Soderberg, though he has not gotten the public acclaim he deserves.
Scott Frank is currently set to follow up The Queen’s Gambit with a Clive Owen series called Monsieur Spade, set to premiere this month on AMC.
This is largely because the majority of his career has been spent as one of the most reliable and prolific script doctors in Hollywood, using his writing talent to help the screenplays of major films come together.
The Queen’s Gambit is just one of his major breakthroughs with Netflix, the other being the critically-lauded Western series Godless. Before he had success with those streaming series, however, he was doing quite well, making some $300,000 per week to polish and rework the screenplays for several of the X-Men films, The Ring, Night at the Museum, Gravity, and Saving Private Ryan, along with nearly 60 other films.
This important work has made the Queen’s Gambit auteur something of a hero in the movie writing world. But it was years before the industry that appreciates and relies on him so much as a script doctor allowed him the opportunity to emerge as a filmmaker in his own right.
His successful Netflix series gave him the opportunity not only to establish himself as a writer and director, but to garner multiple Emmy and Golden Globe wins along the way.
The name Scott Frank might not be familiar to some, but the creator of the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit is busy making a name for himself as a writer and director.
Meanwhile, Frank is currently set to follow up The Queen’s Gambit with a Clive Owen series called Monsieur Spade, set to premiere this month on AMC. Whether this is one of the projects that got a rejection from Netflix is unclear, but the streamer did give Frank a yes for another upcoming project, Department Q. That series is based on the crime novels of Jussi Adler-Olsen, a Danish novelist.
Despite the success of The Queen’s Gambit and other prominent series, Netflix, like other streamers, is more cautious at the moment, following sagging streaming profits across the industry. Still, we’re hoping for good things from Scott Frank on Netflix and AMC this year. Now that Frank is finding his voice, we are excited to see what he’ll be doing in the future.
Source: The New Yorker
