
Director Liza Mandelup attends the ‘Grandmasters’ premiere at Tribeca Festival on June 7, 2026 in New York City.
Manny Carabel/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival
EXCLUSIVE: Good Deed Entertainment has acquired Grandmasters, a documentary from award-winning filmmaker Liza Mandelup that uncovers drama roiling the world of top-tier chess.
Grandmasters premiered as a documentary series at Tribeca Festival in June but will launch in theaters as a nonfiction feature told in three chapters. Good Deed plans to release the film nationwide on October 11 at AMC locations.
“In Grandmasters, the once esoteric and uninspired world of top-level competitive chess is thrown into turmoil when an eccentric German entrepreneur enlists Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen to launch a new league that aims to revolutionize the game, challenge the sport’s governing body, and ‘make chess cool,’” notes a synopsis. “Expertly helmed by Mandelup (Jawline, Caterpillar), with access and support provided by Chess.com, the documentary chronicles the rivalries, reinventions, and personal battles shaping the modern pursuit of greatness in the game of kings.”
In a statement, Mandelup said, “I’m constantly drawn to people who have built their lives around a single pursuit, so getting to spend time with some of the best chess players in the world was immediately exciting to me. What I didn’t expect was how much drama sat just beneath the surface. I wanted to get beyond the idea of a chess genius and make something funny, intimate, and deeply human about the people behind the game.”

Director Liza Mandelup attends the ‘Grandmasters’ premiere at Tribeca Festival on June 7, 2026 in New York City.
Manny Carabel/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival
Good Deed released Mandelup’s documentary Caterpillar in theaters last November.
“Liza has a gift for bringing audiences inside a story, and the beautifully executed Grandmasters opens up the world of chess in a way audiences haven’t seen before,” commented Erik Donley, head of acquisitions and distribution at Good Deed Entertainment. “We are thrilled to be partnering with Liza once again on another culturally captivating story.”
Chess has proved fertile ground for fictional exploration on screen, to whit the hit Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit (2020); Pawn Sacrifice, starring Tobey Maguire and Liev Schreiber (2014); The Luzhin Defence (2000), and Searching for Bobby Fischer, starring Ben Kingsley, Laurence Fishburne, Joan Allen and more (1993). Mandelup’s film explores the real thing.
“We have been living in the drama of top-level chess for decades, and knew that the outside world had only seen a very small portion of it,” observed Danny Rensch, co-founder and Chief Chess Officer of Chess.com. “The story of these players is so much bigger than the board, and Good Deed understood that immediately. Now we get to share it as widely as it deserves.”
Grandmasters is a Boardwalk Pictures production, starring Magnus Carlsen, Wesley So, Jan Henric Buettner, Hans Niemann, Danny Rensch, Levy Rozman, and Lotis Key. In addition to directing the film, Mandelup executive produced the project alongside Jordan Wynn, Andrew Fried, Lana Barkin, Patrick Altema, and Alex Leibow. The film is produced by Max McGillivray and Christian Vazquez.

Good Deed Entertainment
Good Deed Entertainment is an independent film studio “built around distinctive voices and underserved audiences.” Recent releases include Looking Through Water (Michael Douglas) and Drive Back Home (Alan Cumming), alongside a catalog of acclaimed films such as Lucky Grandma, To Dust, and the Academy Award nominee Loving Vincent.
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Amazon MGM Studios has announced a series order for Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, a darkly comedic murder mystery from Fifth Season and Made Up Stories, based on the bestselling book series by Benjamin Stevenson.
You‘s Penn Badgley will star, with David Hemingson (The Holdovers) set as showrunner and executive producer. Badgley returns to Amazon after wrapping a starring role opposite Meghann Fahy in their forthcoming rom-com You Deserve Each Other — also from Fifth Season, along with Likely Story. The project gets off the ground at Amazon MGM after an attempt at series development of the book at HBO.
Set deep in the dense mountains of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone follows Ern Cunningham (Badgley), a mystery-writing expert who reluctantly attends a family reunion to welcome his brother Michael home from prison — the same brother Ern helped convict. When a frozen body appears and a snowstorm traps everyone inside, the deaths begin to mount. Everyone in his family has already killed someone — either by accident or otherwise.
Mariner Books published the book in 2022. It’s Stevenson’s first in an internationally bestselling series, dubbed Ernest Cunningham Mysteries, whose fifth installment is currently in the works.
Hemingson exec produces alongside Bruna Papandrea, Steve Hutensky and Jeanne Snow of Made Up Stories, Molly Allen, Badgley and Stevenson. Fifth Season and Made Up Stories are producing and will together serve as the studio.
Fifth Season and Made Up Stories reteam following collaborations on series including The Good Daughter and Wolf Like Me for Peacock, Roar for Apple TV+, Nine Perfect Strangers for Hulu, Pieces of Her and Anatomy of a Scandal for Netflix, The Last Anniversary for AMC and The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart for Prime Video.
In a statement on the series order, author Stevenson shared, “I am blown away by the vision and enthusiasm everyone has for bringing this book, and Ernest Cunningham, to the screen. Penn perfectly captures Ern’s clueyness and cleverness, and David has brought bags of wit and heart to the script. With the passion of Amazon MGM Studios, Bruna and Steve behind us we have an absolutely killer team, and I can’t wait to solve a murder with them!”
Peter Friedlander, Amazon MGM’s Head of Global Television, added: “Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone is a brilliantly inventive series that subverts the murder mystery genre in the most unexpected and entertaining ways. Ben created a world that is darkly funny and wickedly clever. Paired with David’s sharp storytelling and Penn’s magnetic presence, and with our incredible partners at Fifth Season and Made Up Stories, this series is going to be something truly special for Prime Video.”
No stranger to murder, nor successful book adaptations, Badgley is coming off of a starring turn as serial killer Joe Goldberg in the hit thriller series You, based on the book series by Caroline Kepnes, which originated at Lifetime before moving to Netflix for its final four seasons. Otherwise best known for starring in The CW’s Gossip Girl, his upcoming slate includes the Bleecker Street thriller NDA, in addition to You Deserve Each Other. He is repped by Brillstein Entertainment Partners, CAA, and Hansen, Jacobson, Teller.
Oscar-nominated for his script The Holdovers, the holiday dramedy directed for Focus Features by Alexander Payne, Hemingson also produced that film, marking the screen debut of Tony‘s Dominic Sessa. Otherwise best known for creating the ABC series Whiskey Cavalier, the writer-producer has also worked on The Catch, Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23, Kitchen Confidential and myriad other series. He is repped by 3 Arts, WME, and McKuin Frankel & Whitehead.
A stand-up comic, as well as an author, Stevenson’s books have sold over a million copies in 29 territories. The latest in his Ernest Cunningham series, Everyone in This Bank Is a Thief, released in March. He is repped by Leslie Conliffe at Intellectual Property Group and Pippa Masson at Curtis Brown Australia.
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The Edinburgh TV Festival has announced the winners of its 2026 awards. HBO series The Pitt was named Best International Drama, while The Celebrity Traitors won Best Entertainment or Reality Series. The Celebrity Traitors host Claudia Winkleman took home Best TV Presenter – Entertainment. BBC transgender drama What It Feels Like for a Girl scooped […]
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EXCLUSIVE: Andrew “King Bach” Bachelor has wrapped on the Los Angeles shoot for Tap Twice, an indie supernatural horror film marking his feature directorial debut, in which he also stars.
In the film, a grieving couple retreats to an isolated estate where the walls record every word — and a presence learns to speak in their voices.
Others in the cast include Chelsea Tavares (All American), Joel McKinnon Miller (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), Carson Fagerbakke (Shifting Gears), Augusta Liv (The Beauty), Gillian Nation (Baywatch) and Joe Massingill (Spider-Noir).
Christina and Andrew Bachelor produced alongside Ryan Lewis and Ilya Pozin in association with Luna Media Company.
A comedian, actor and content creator with over 70 million followers across social platforms, Bachelor released his debut comedy special Like, Share, And Comment, directed by Jo Koy, in June. As an actor, he’ll be seen coming up in Universal’s Violent Night 2, Amazon MGM’s Road House 2 and romantic comedy Goodbye Girl, and the indie crime thriller Good in the Room. He is repped by Christina Bachelor, Artists First, CAA, and Duncan Hedges of Hansen, Jacobson, Teller.
Tavares is repped by Innovative Artists; McKinnon Miller by Michael Greene Artists Agency; Fagerbakke by Main Title Entertainment and Buchwald; Liv by AEFH; Nation by Luber Roklin; and Massingill by Venture, J Pervis Talent Agency, Ellis Talent Group, and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman.
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