Film Tackles the Story of Michael Jordan and Nike Film Deal
“Air”, the highly anticipated 2023 film that depicts the origins of the Nike “Air Jordan” shoe line deal, made its premiere at South by Southwest Film Festival on March 18th, 2023, ahead of its official premiere on April 3rd, 2023.
The film is a collaboration project between Oscar winning duo Ben Afleck and Matt Damon. Affleck directs and stars as Phil Knight, the esteemed former Chairman and co-founder of Nike, while Damon stars as Sonny Vaccaro, the employee who successfully convinced Michael Jordan to be a part of the Air Jordan endorsement deal.
The film trailer made its premiere during Super Bowl LVII. The film has an all star cast. Joining Damon and Affleck is Jason Bateman, Chris Tucker, Marlon Wayans, and Viola Davis. Davis, who plays Jordan’s mother Deloris, was a personal choice from Jordan himself. Writer Selome Hailu, in her 2023 article for Variety, “Ben Affleck on the Demands Michael Jordan Made Before He Directed ‘Air’”, writes, “introducing ‘Air’ at its South by Southwest world premiere, Affleck said, ‘I had a chance to sit down with Michael Jordan, because I just wasn’t going to make this movie without asking him, ‘What matters to you?’. Interestingly, and tellingly, he had a few things that mattered…and then he talked about his mother. It was the first time I saw this look cross his face. It was a look of reverence, of awe, of love, and gratitude, and innocence. He said, ‘None of this would have ever happened without my mother.’ I said, ‘Who would you like to play your mom?’ He said, ‘Well, it has to be Viola Davis.”
Davis, who received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in “Fences”, received critical acclaim recently for her role in the 2023 film The Woman King. The recent EGOT spoke very highly of the mother of the basketball legend in a recent article from USA Today, “ ‘She was a generation where your kids are your dreams,’ Davis said of Deloris Jordan. For years in the Black community, “people weren’t allowed to dream because we weren’t given any opportunities. And so this was a woman who did believe in education, but she believed in tapping into that opportunity that her son had in playing with the NBA and getting the utmost for this extraordinary human being.”
With an overwhelming critical reception at SXSW, the film depicts the story of one of the greatest known endorsement deals of all time and the key players behind its conception and execution.
