Joker was all about games, but somehow we don't think he'd be into chess. Or maybe he would. Heath Ledger, on the other hand, was.
Apparently, Ledger was an avid player, just not as avid a player as Beth Harmon from the hit Netflix show, The Queen's Gambit. But that doesn't mean the actor and the show don't have something in common.
Heath Ledger was already a prolific actor that surprised fans and critics with every role by the time he died in 2008. He gave us one last Oscar-winning role with Joker in The Dark Knight, and since then his family has kept his legacy alive.
Before his tragic death, though, Ledger meant to make a film that would have had a competitive streak that rivaled Harmon's.
Ledger Planned To Make 'The Queen's Gambit'
With how successful Ledger was at the time of his death, there would have been no surprise if he'd gone on to accomplish more great things had he lived. One of those great things might have been his directorial debut with The Queen's Gambit.
No doubt, when Ledger came across Walter Tevis's 1983 novel about a young successful chess prodigy, he recognized a kindred spirit in Harmon.
He was a successful actor with his own addiction problems, and Harmon had just as much star power in the chess world with equally problematic addictions.
The fact that Ledger was a sort of chess prodigy as a kid also probably attracted him to the novel and the character. He won Western Australia's junior chess championship when he was ten.
If Ledger had lived we probably wouldn't have gotten the limited series penned by Scott Frank and Allan Shiach (pen name Allan Scott) which featured Anya-Taylor Joy and went on to have a record-breaking 62 million household views.
Shiach was involved with the project from the start, and told The Independent, just a couple of weeks after Ledger's death, that he and the actor had been working together on an adaptation of their own in 2007.
The product would have been a film that starred Ledger, and the leading lady was envisioned to be Elliot Page.
It Took Decades For Schiach To Get The Project Off The Ground
Shiach and Ledger's collaboration came about after many failed attempts by Shiach to get the project off the ground.
After reading the novel, Shiach knew he had to make it into a film as soon as possible. So he set out to acquire the rights starting in 1989 but wasn't granted full rights until 1993.
He then set to work writing the screenplay and finding the director. He tried with directors like Michael Apted and Bernardo Bertolucci but was unsuccessful. The project ended up forgotten about for a decade.
Until 2007, when Ledger contacted Shiach. The actor became the eighth person Shiach worked with on the screenplay, and he hadn't even had his directorial debut yet. The only experience he had at the time was directing a couple of music videos.
But Shiach wound up sending him some material and soon they were collaborating. They planned to meet in early 2008, but tragically Ledger died before they could.
A few weeks after Ledger's death, Shiach revealed that Ledger was very passionate about the project.
"He was passionate about it; he was an intense, interested young man and I was drawn to him immediately," he said.
"We spent a lot of time over the last three months working on his vision. I did draft after draft and he gave his input and we met several times in New York and here, where he was spending a lot of his time. We had got to the stage where we had sent the script to Ellen. Heath was full of ideas for the other cast, mainly from his list of acting friends. We were planning to make a movie at the end of 2008."
They talked a lot during the late hours of the night about all of the aspects of the film, including what music they'd use. Shiach suggested they use Rosemary Clooney's "This Ole House" and sent Ledger other 50's music which he loved.
But sadly Shiach was left without his creative partner and the project was left alone again until Frank signed on years later.
"As in everything you write, if you're lucky one in five screenplays gets made," Shiach concluded. "With this, it's just a question of waiting for the right opportunity and getting the right director. I thought Heath was that. Although it's a very commercial subject it will be seen as an art-house movie. So you need to bring in strong actors and make a beautiful film in order to have a hope of having a break-out success."
Eventually, after constant setbacks, Shiach finally made The Queen's Gambit, but not exactly as he and Ledger had imagined it. Scott suggested that they adapt it into a limited series, and Netflix agreed.
With all the rewrites, Ledger's death, and studios telling him that no one would be interested in chess, Shiach finally made one of the most successful series of all time. It was worth the wait, and Ledger would definitely be proud. The Queen's Gambit did get a pretty awesome soundtrack in the end too.