South African comedian and TV host Trevor Noah is set to produce a new movie.
According to reports making the rounds, the movie is about Tanitoluwa Adewumi, an 8-year-old former homeless Nigerian migrant who won a New York state chess championship in March.
Tanitoluwa 'Tani' Adewumi made international headlines after his successes at the chess championship just two years after he migrated to the United States with his family who was fleeing from Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria.
After moving to the United States, Tanitoluwa Adewumi and his family were homeless. Still, his family was able to secure a permanent housing thanks over U.S.$250,000 in donations that they received through GoFundMe.
After his story went viral, and people discovered he was homeless, a GoFundMe account was opened, and funds were raised for his family to buy an apartment.
Now, Tanitoluwa Adewumi’s story will live forever as it is about to be adapted in a motion picture by one of the world’s most successful comedian and TV host, Trevor Noah.
Trevor Noah is already developing the film about Tanitoluwa Adewumi.
Noah, who hosts the award-winning The Daily Show, would produce the film under his Day Zero Productions imprint, alongside business partner, Haroon Salem.
State Street Pictures and Mainstay Entertainment were also named as producers on the project, which was acquired by Paramount Studios.
NAN reports that Adewumi had only been playing chess for a year when he won the New York State Scholastic Chess Championship in 2018.
He learned to play chess from a teacher at school.
The plot of the film centred on the Adewumi family's survival story of seeking asylum only to become homeless in New York, and the lengths that parents would go to for their children.
The film's script would be adapted from a trio of books on the family, which would be released through HarperCollins' W Publishing imprint in 2020.
Adewumi says that he "wants to be the youngest grandmaster" of chess.
Header Image Credit: The National