November 5, 2019
Trevor Noah to Produce Movie About 8-Year Old Nigerian Chess Prodigy
According to Deadline, The Daily Show‘s Trevor Noah is set to produce a movie about a former homeless Nigerian chess prodigy who went on to win the NY State Chess Championship.
Paramount Pictures will be adapting the story of an 8-year-old Nigerian chess star, Tanitoluwa Adewumi that will be co-produced by Noah’s Day Zero Productions. Other producers attached to the project include Haroon Saleem, State Street Pictures’ George Tillman Jr. and Bob Teitel, and Mainstay Entertainment’s Norman Aladjem.
Adewumi and his family were living in a homeless shelter after arriving in the United States after fleeing the extremist group Boko Haram in Nigeria. The 8-year-old won the 2019 New York Chess Championship in spite of only being introduced to the game two years earlier. The story of the Adewumi family will be published in a set of three books that are planned for spring 2020 releases from W Publishing. The film’s script will be based on the books.
“It’s a story of love, peace, community, and faith, and the lengths parents will go to bring their family to safety and provide them a better life. Tani’s accomplishment went viral and the family’s story became an inspiration to many,” the report highlights.
Earlier this year, a GoFundMe page was established for Adewumi and a total of $254,448 was raised and allowed him and his family to move into an apartment. “It’s a wonderful day because God made it happen,” Tani’s dad Kayode Adewumi told NBC News 4 at the time.
Noah and his Day Zero partner Saleem are already conducting business with Aladjem’s Mainstay Entertainment on an adaptation of Noah’s best-selling memoir Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood, which he wrote in 2016. Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o is expected to star in the film adaption. Day Zero and Mainstay are in preparation for Noah’s untitled series for Quibi, in which he will star in and produce. Noah was named one of “The 35 Most Powerful People in New York Media” by The Hollywood Reporter in 2017 and 2018. In 2018, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.