Emma Stone (left) and Elizabeth Banks (right) are each lined up to play Billie Jean King (bottom) in different projects. Three different films are being plotted by rival studios, all telling the story of the ‘Battle of the Sexes’ tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. King was 29-years-old and while she was in a relationship with a woman, closeted, when she famously beat 55-year-old male tennis player Bobby Riggs in 1973. Of three movie projects in the works, the frontrunner seems to be a Fox Searchlight production, to be called Battle of the Sexes, which King herself is collaborating on. It would star Emma Stone as King, and Steve Carell as Riggs, with Danny Boyle producing, Slumdog Millionaire’s Simon Beaufoy writing and Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris of Little Miss Sunshine directing. Elizabeth Banks would play King in an untitled HBO project, with Paul Giamatti as Riggs. There’s also a third contender, The Match Maker, where Will Ferrell would play Riggs – that film would look at claims Riggs threw the match in order to erase gambling debts he had to the mob. There is no word on who would play King. King was infamously outed via a 'palimony' lawsuit filed by her ex-partner in 1981, and lost a fortune in endorsements. She later explained she’d wanted to come out in her own time, as she had homophobic parents, and was told if she revealed her sexuality it would be the end of her tennis career. GayNZ.com staff - 23rd April 2015