Emma Stone To Face Off Against Steve Carell in Tennis Film BATTLE OF THE SEXES

As is often the case in Hollywood, when someone decides to make a movie about a certain topic, rival studios will often jump on the idea and try to beat them to the punch. It's become increasingly common over the past few years, and now the trend continues with Battle of the Sexes, Fox Searchlight's new movie that chronicles the iconic 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. There is a version in the works at HBO set to star Elizabeth Banks and Paul Giamatti, and now Deadline reports that Emma Stone and Steve Carell will topline the Fox Searchlight version, which should be ready to debut sometime next year.

Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle was initially in talks to direct this project, but he's since moved into a producer capacity instead. Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) wrote the screenplay, and Little Miss Sunshine directing duo Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris are stepping in to direct. Sounds cool to me, and it should be interesting to see Carell return to the sports world after his work in Foxcatcher and to see how the Crazy Stupid Love co-stars work as rivals on screen.

Tennis seems to be on the brain in Tinseltown right now. There's another competing Battle of the Sexes project with Will Ferrell attached to play Riggs, as well as the hilarious-sounding mockumentary 7 Days in Hell that stars Andy Samberg and Game of Thrones' Kit Harington as rival tennis players who are stuck in a seven day match. We'll see if they all end up making it through development, or if a few of these companies decide to throw in the towel.