Making a movie based on the achievements of one of America’s most celebrated sportspeople comes with a huge amount of pressure.
Ben Affleck took on that pressure when making the 2023 movie ‘Air’, which was all about Michael Jordan and his incredible NBA career.
The main person that Affleck surely wanted to impress was Jordan himself, and the pressure was on given the Chicago Bulls star was not appearing in the movie and therefore had no impact on the process.
Affleck shares the details
When speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Affleck explained why Jordan was not involved at all.
“It was a deliberate choice. I thought he was too majestic to have anyone impersonate him and – as I told him – ‘You’re too old to play the part.'”
Affleck was then asked whether Jordan actually liked the movie once he got the chance to see it.
“He said he did… The best part of that movie was the opportunity to spend time with him and hear what he cares about and talk about his family,” Affleck explained.
The movie certainly did well, as it earned more than $90 million at the box office.
“He (MJ) talked about his mother. He just said, ‘None of this would have ever happened without my mother doing everything.’ I said, Who would you like to play your mom?’ And he said, ‘It has to be Viola Davis.’ I always felt that if I was a director one day, and I had Viola Davis in a movie, that would really be something. That would mean the world to me,” Affleck said at SXSW 2023.
Air has a 98% score on Rotten Tomatoes and has managed to sit above many of the sports movies that have been made in recent years, with many showing that it is not an easy genre to nail.
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