Aaron Sorkin, the venerable screenwriter and West Wing creator who is generating Oscar buzz for writing Steve Jobs, will make his directorial debut with Molly’s Game, the story of skier-turned-underground poker madam Molly Bloom, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
Sorkin had already been working on the project, which recently was set up at Sony, as its screenwriter, but he will now segue to helming his first-ever movie.
Mark Gordon and Amy Pascal are producing the adaptation of Bloom’s memoir, Molly’s Game: From Hollywood’s Elite to Wall Street’s Billionaire Boy’s Club, My High-Stakes Adventure in the World of Underground Poker, published by itbooks, an imprint of HarperCollins, in 2014.
Bloom was a skier who, after her Olympic dreams were dashed, headed to Los Angeles and became a co*cktail waitress. But she rose through the social circuit to became an organizer of underground poker games for the Hollywood elite, with players including Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. Her poker games came to end when she was arrested by the FBI.
Sorkin won an Oscar for writing The Social Network and was nominated, along with Steve Zaillian, for Moneyball. He is in contention once again this awards season, garnering acclaim for Steve Jobs, the Danny Boyle-directed biopic of the Apple co-founder.
Sources say Sorkin is hoping to fast-track Molly’s Game and begin meeting with actresses soon.
