Jack and I liked this story of shoe manufacturer Nike's signing Michael Jordan in the 1980s, with Matt Damon as sports executive Sonny Vaccaro (who closed the deal) and Ben Affleck directing and playing Nike co-founder Phil Knight. Jordan approved the movie (we never see the face of the actor playing him), with the requests that Viola Davis play his mother Deloris and that his friend Howard White's character be depicted. White is played by comedic actor Chris Tucker. The large cast includes Jason Bateman, Chris Messina, and Davis' real-life husband Julius Tennon as Deloris' husband James Jordan.
Aspiring scriptwriter Alex Convery, who had a "graveyard of unproduced screenplays," was a 20-something intern on the docu-series 30 for 30, one 2015 episode of which, Sole Man, was about Vaccaro, and came up with the idea on his own. The script made the 2021 Black List, which names the best unproduced screenplays of each year (since 2005––Juno was on that first list). Damon and Affleck picked it up, made a few tweaks, still gave Convery sole writing credit, and the cast did a little dialogue improvisation. It came out great! I was a little annoyed that Damon's Vaccaro was referred to as "fat" at least three times. He didn't look all that huge to me, but I have just learned that he did wear a fat suit for production.
No composer is credited. I counted 43 songs in the credits and, amazingly, all of them are listed on imdb and thirteen of the 80s hits are on this Apple Music album.
Damon was last blogged for Ford v Ferrari, Affleck for acting in The Way Back and for directing Argo, Davis for The Woman King, and Tucker for The Silver Linings Playbook. After I wrote about Bateman for Game Night, he starred in 44 episodes of Ozark, and Tennon's dozens of credits include playing Moru in The Woman King.
Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are flying high, averaging 92 and 98%, respectively. We streamed it on Prime with our subscription May 23. It's also playing in a few theatres.
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