Will Ferrell has signed on to play Bobby Riggs in Match Maker, a drama about the 'battle of the sexes' tennis match in 1973 that Riggs played against Billie Jean King.

It follows the news in February that director Danny Boyle and writer Simon Beaufoy met with King in New York to discuss the project; Boyle had previously been seen at the premiere of a documentary on the match, entitled Battle of the Sexes. It isn't clear whether Boyle is still in the running, but Beaufoy will not pen the script, which will be taken on by Steve Conrad, writer of last year's Secret Life of Walter Mitty remake as well as The Pursuit of Happyness and a forthcoming John Belushi biopic.

Riggs was world number one in 1939 and again in 1946-7, and won Wimbledon as well as two US Open titles. At the age of 55, he challenged first Margaret Court and later King, the latter becoming one of the most-viewed matches ever on TV with over 50m Americans tuning in. He beat Court, then the top women's player in the world, but lost to King after she monitored his defensive style against Court and worked it against him.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the script for Match Maker will be adapted from an ESPN Magazine feature entitled The Match Maker: Bobby Riggs, The Mafia and The Battle of the Sexes. As that title alludes, it's been claimed that Riggs deliberately lost the match as a means of paying off gambling debts to the mob, but others deny that story, saying Riggs was distraught after the loss.

Ferrell has a number of other projects in the pipeline: he has a supporting role in Kristin Wiig's indie comedy Welcome to Me, and will team with Kevin Hart on prison comedy Get Hard. Daddy's Home meanwhile sees him reunite with his Old School co-star Vince Vaughan, playing a mild-mannered stepdad competing for the attention of his children with Vaughan's freewheeling biological father.

Reading on mobile? Watch the trailer for the 2013 documentary The Battle of the Sexes