Poker book to be made into film
A book written by a former speechwriter to Prince is going to made into a movie.
Penned in 1990 by biographer Anthony Holden, Big Deal: One Year as a Professional Poker Player was a big hit, selling quarter of a million copies worldwide.
The book will now become a film courtesy of Celadon Films, with a production date of 2007 and Hugh Grant and Johnny Depp have reportedly been floated as possible actors to play Holden. The writer’s son Joe has been signed up to write the screenplay, according to website Poker News.
Briton Holden coined the phrase “Poker may be only a game, but it is not a matter of life and death. It’s a lot more serious than that” and is somewhat of a legend in poker circles.
The writer left his role as assistant editor of the Times newspaper in disgrace after insulting his then boss Rupert Murdoch in front of the Queen and turned his hand to biography.
After his passion for poker grew out of his regular Tuesday night games, he decided to give up his day job, put $20,000 aside and become a professional poker player, writing Big Deal about his experiences at some of the biggest tables in the world.
Holden is rumoured to be penning a sequel to Big Deal, called A Bigger Deal, about his adventures during 2005 and 2006 in the World Series of Poker (WSOP). He is currently chief classical music critic for the Observer newspaper.
With the rapidly growing popularity of poker, a host of television programmes, books and websites dedicated to the game, the decision to make a film version of one of the most popular poker books ever seems a sensible one.