Send this page to someone via email

TORONTO — Actor Tobey Maguire is heading to Montreal this winter to make a feature film about the chess match of the century.

Maguire, 38, is set to portray the late American chess master Bobby Fischer in Pawn Sacrifice.

The movie, directed by Edward Zwick, tells the story of the chess prodigy’s road to the epic Cold War face-off with Boris Spassky in 1972. Fischer emerged victorious and ended 24 years of Soviet domination of the World Championships.

Pawn Sacrifice goes into production later this year in Montreal, Global News has learned. Maguire’s Material Pictures will co-produce the film, which was written by Stephen Knight (Eastern Promises).

It is not yet known who will portray Spassky.

Zwick, whose credits include 2006’s Blood Diamond and 1994’s Legends of the Fall, has experience bringing real-life characters to the big screen — he helmed 2008’s Defiance and 1989’s Glory.

Story continues below advertisement

Maguire, who most recently appeared in The Great Gatsby, played Spider-Man in three movies and starred in 2009’s Brothers and 2003’s Seabiscuit.

Fischer’s dramatic life was chronicled in the 2011 documentary Bobby Fischer Against the World and the chess champ appeared as himself in the 1993 feature Searching for Bobby Fischer.

He died in 2008 in Iceland at 64.

Spassky is 76.