The Queen’s Gambit showrunner Scott Frank has revealed his next project is a Sam Spade series starring Clive Owen. Frank has a padded screenwriting repertoire to his name, with past films including Get Shorty, Minority Report, The Wolverine, and Logan before his latest work on Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit. Owen is an English actor best known for his work in Children of Men and Closer, which won him an Academy Award nomination, Golden Globe award, and BAFTA.
Frank has worked on several shows for Netflix before the chess drama based on Walter Tevis’s 1983 novel The Queen’s Gambit. As the limited series format becomes more and more popular on streaming platforms, Frank has moved away from scripting features to focus on streaming work. In 2017, he worked on Western Godless for Netflix, and it seems after the success of his latest 7-episode series following chess prodigy Beth Harmon, he won’t be changing course just yet.
Recently on The Ringer’s podcast, The Watch hosts Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald interviewed Frank about his next project following the booming reception of The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. Frank revealed that he is currently developing a six-part series based on Sam Spade, a private detective from the 1941 noir classic The Maltese Falcon. Frank is interested in casting Owen as Sam Spade in his show, though nothing has been confirmed. Providing a small teaser into what his limited series will look like, Frank says:
“What if you do Sam Spade later in life and he’s 60s years old? He’s now an ex-pat living in the South of France. His past comes to his past and finds him in this small town. It’s going to be a six-episode series with Clive Owen.”
Directed by John Huston, The Maltese Falcon follows San Francisco private detective Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart), who takes on a case brought to him by his femme fatale client (Mary Astor). Trouble ensues as Sam is wrapped up in a web of crime among three other adventurers competing for a jewel-encrusted Maltese falcon statuette. Where Frank is interested in reanimating Sam Spade is following the events of his youthful escapades.
This project’s timeline is currently unclear, with few details about when and where development is at the moment. However, as The Queen’s Gambit has shown the limited series format to be a success, at least for now, it will be interesting to see how the show’s director will similarly approach his next limited series. The expanded story of an older Sam Spade from actor Owen, especially calling back to the noir period of the original film, could attract an impressive audience like The Queen’s Gambit has.
