How Two Magnus Carlsen Games Helped Inspire Norway’s New Chess Thriller

A Magnus Carlsen game from 2010 and his famous queen sacrifice from the 2016 World Championship match helped shape the central chess battle in The Nation’s Gambit, a new Norwegian political thriller, in which every captured piece costs a human life.

The film, which premieres in Norwegian cinemas on September 11, has already attracted major international attention, with distribution deals secured in dozens of countries ahead of its release.

Based on Johan Host’s bestselling 2022 novel, the thriller combines terrorism, political drama, and chess in a plot that is unlike almost anything seen before in Norwegian cinema.

Norway’s prime minister is kidnapped during a skiing trip, and the terrorist responsible demands a chess match against the country’s political leaders. Each piece captured on the board corresponds to a real-world execution, forcing the government to decide whether to play—and how much it is willing to sacrifice.

Host explains the plot in this video, while the trailer is available at the bottom of the story.

Speaking to Chess.com, producer Stig Berg explained what made the concept immediately appeal to him. “It’s the most pitchable project I’ve ever worked on,” he said. “You can explain the plot in 12 seconds and people immediately understand what it’s about.”

Berg said chess provides a uniquely powerful dramatic device because every move carries immediate consequences. “The consequences of moving a piece here are completely insane,” he said. “You actually take people’s lives!”

Author Host sees chess as a way to tap into something deeper. “Chess is never really about chess,” he told Chess.com. “It’s about conflict, pressure, fear, sacrifice, winners, and losers. That’s exactly what you need to build a great story.”

Chess is never really about chess. It’s about conflict, pressure, fear, sacrifice, winners, and losers. That’s exactly what you need to build a great story.

—Johan Host

For chess fans, the most intriguing part is how seriously the filmmakers treated the game itself. “Chess plays the leading role in the book, and chess has a leading role in the film,” Host said. “It’s taken very seriously.”

Chess commentator and author IM Atle Gronn served as the chess consultant for the film, and had to go back and forth with the production team checking for accuracy. He worked with chess composer IM Geir Sune Tallaksen Ostmoe to create a game that mirrored the story in the movie. 

“There was a big difference between the book and the film,” Gronn told Chess.com. “The film has a more concentrated plot and fewer deaths. That means fewer pieces have to be captured, and it wasn’t easy to achieve what we wanted.”

The original game in the film is based on Carlsen’s King’s Gambit victory against GM Wang Yue in the 2010 Bazna Kings tournament in Romania.

“As in the book, we start with the King’s Gambit, but we finish with a tribute to Carlsen’s Qh6 against GM Sergey Karjakin,” Gronn said.

That reference is to the third playoff game of the 2016 World Championship match, where Carlsen clinched match victory with a move that has become one of the most memorable moments of his career.

Asked about how important it was for him to get such details accurate, Gronn said: “For me, making sure everything was accurate was the whole point. The only thing I really cared about.”

For me, making sure the details were accurate was the whole point. It was the only thing I really cared about.

—Atle Gronn

The filmmakers made several changes throughout the production, and the producer said even minor inaccuracies triggered rewrites and rerecordings. “Atle spent an incredible amount of time reconstructing the middlegame so everything would work,” he said.

Berg recalled asking whether they should leave a deliberate mistake in the movie to give chess fans something to argue about. “Not a fan of that,” was Gronn’s immediate response.

Gronn, on the other hand, explained how getting the chess right remained a challenge until the very end. “Actor Jon Oigarden said ‘Qa6’ instead of ‘Qh6,’ and IM Torstein Bae was edited into a scene commenting on a peaceful draw when the position on the board was actually mate in two.”

Bae, who has been the lead chess commentator on Norwegian TV since 2013, appears in the film as a chess expert and had to be brought back in to rerecord his lines.

The international master said he believes the film’s treatment of chess could resonate outside of Norway. “I think the film can succeed internationally,” Gronn said, after having seen the preview. “The chess isn’t intrusive. The movie doesn’t have the usual chess cliches. And I think it’s an advantage that there isn’t too much chess in the film, and the chess that is there is elegant and of a high level,” he added.

It’s an advantage that there isn’t too much chess in the film, and the chess that is there is elegant and of a high level.

—Atle Gronn

The idea for The Nation’s Gambit came to Host while he was running on the treadmill at his local gym. He found himself watching three different screens at the same time: one showing a chess broadcast, another showing Norway’s prime minister, and a third covering a hostage situation. 

The combination sparked the idea for what would become one of Norway’s bestselling novels. The book sold more than 50,000 copies and became one of the country’s biggest literary successes of 2022. Plans for a film adaptation were already underway before the book had been released.

While the filmmakers wanted the story to appeal to a general audience, chess fans will enjoy the hidden chess references. The fictional chess expert Sven Oen comes from the full name of the world number-one, Sven Magnus Oen Carlsen. “Chess players think that’s hilarious,” Host said. “The people who know, know.”

However, the author revealed that the personality was actually inspired by Ukrainian GM Anton Korobov. “I needed a character and started looking through chess players,” he said. “I’ve seen YouTube videos of him. He’s got that crow’s nest of hair, he’s a bit heavyset, eats junk food, and is loud and clumsy. That’s Korobov.”

Another reference comes through the film’s protagonist, Anton Block, whose name is borrowed from Antonius Block, the knight who famously plays chess with Death in Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 classic The Seventh Seal.

A memorable scene from the film, which Chess.com’s reporter has seen, features a debate over which Norwegian player should represent the government in the life-or-death match, with Carlsen’s name naturally appearing at the top of the list, along with Norwegian GMs Aryan Tari and Johan-Sebastian Christiansen.

With a reported budget of approximately NOK 65 million ($6.7 million), the project is Norway’s largest film production this year, roughly double the budget of a typical Norwegian film.

The ambitious project generated international attention when it was showcased at the Cannes and Berlin film festivals this year. The producer said Germany’s ZDF acquired rights based solely on the screenplay, calling it the biggest sale ever achieved by a Norwegian film in the German market.

It will later appear on Amazon Prime in 2027, while streaming rights have also been sold to Netflix. The movie rights have been sold to 34 countries worldwide.

Considering the streaming deals and the interest in Europe, a Hollywood remake wouldn’t be a surprise. Asked who he would like to direct such a version, Host was clear. “If there’s one person who could take this and elevate it, it’s Christopher Nolan,” he said. “Everything he touches turns to gold.”

He believes the contrary nature of chess is exactly why it works so well on screen. “Chess is supposed to be terribly boring. It’s two people sitting quietly around a table moving pieces. But everything that’s happening inside their heads—fear, hatred, power games, manipulation—that’s perfect for film.”