The Boston filmmaking dream team will reunite for one more outing about Ben Affleck and Matt Damon will head to Amazon for a new film about Nike and its attempt to sign Jordan.
Reports say that Affleck will helm the project, in which he will star alongside Matt Damon. Damon will play Sonny Vaccaro, while Affleck stars as Phil Knight. Alex Convery wrote the original script by the title Air Jordan. It was even named to the 2021 Black List of the best-unproduced screenplays. Damon and Affleck will take a pass at the script while also producing. Mandalay Pictures purchased the screenplay and brought it to Skydance Sports, where they secured Vaccarro’s life rights.
Per The Hollywood Reporter: “The as-yet-untitled sports marketing film will tell the incredible story of how Sonny Vaccaro, a maverick sneaker salesman, led a fledgling running shoe company called Nike in its pursuit of the most transformative athlete in the history of sports: Michael Jordan. Affleck will portray Nike co-founder Phil Knight in the story surrounding Nike’s longshot effort to sign Jordan to its shoe company in the mid-’80s, an endorsement that seemed impossible at the time but which would become the most significant relationship between an athletic brand and an athlete and launched the global, multibillion-dollar contemporary sneaker industry.”
While Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have been long-time filmmaking partners, this film will mark the first time Affleck has directed Damon. The pair previously wrote Good Will Hunting, for which they won an Oscar for Best Screenplay. Affleck has directed Gone Baby Gone, The Town, Live by Night, and the Academy Award-winning Argo.
