Trevor Noah to produce film on homeless 8-year-old Nigerian chess champ in NY

Daily Show host, Trevor Noah, is set to produce a biopic on an 8-year-old chess prodigy who shot into fame earlier in 2019 after winning the New York State chess championship.

According to Essence.com, Paramount Pictures have secured the rights to the project around the boy whose family relocated from Nigeria to the States as refugees.

The boy, Tani Adewumi, and his parents were accommodated in a New York homeless shelter at the time he chalked the magnificent feat. He had learned how to play chess only two years prior to the competition.

A film project is not the only thing Adewumi and his family will have about their life. A three-part book is set to be released by W Publishing in 2020 about the travails of the family that had to escape the violence of the terrorist group, Boko Haram.

The film will be sourced from the books.

On his part, Noah has yet to comment on his role as a producer through his company, Day Zero Productions.

His memoir, Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood, is already in the works for a film adaptation.

Born a Crime is a book about Noah’s upbringing in apartheid South Africa and the role of his mother is set to be played by Lupita Nyong’o.