The upcoming Ben Affleck and Matt Damon movie about a sports marketing manager who relentlessly pursues basketball legend Michael Jordan in the mid-’80s added an all-star cast to his lineup.
Emmy Award winner Jason Bateman, Viola Davis, Chris Tucker, and Academy Award winner Marlon Wayans signed on to star opposite Affleck and Damon in Untitled Prime Video, alongside Matthew Maher, Chris Messina, Tom Papa and Julius Tennon.
Damon plays independent sneaker salesman and former Nike CEO Sonny Vaccaro, and Affleck plays Nike co-founder Phil Knight in the film, from Amazon Studios, Skydance Sports and Mandalay Pictures. The film tells the story of Nike’s long-running effort to sign Jordan into the shoe company, an endorsement that seemed impossible at the time, but would become the most important relationship between a sports brand and an athlete. The strategic partnership has helped launch the multi-billion dollar global contemporary athletic footwear industry.
In the film, Bateman will play Rob Strasser, longtime Nike CEO (and Vaccaro’s president), who was instrumental in the company’s efforts to sign, and later promote, Jordan as he oversaw marketing and messaging for the company. Davis will play Michael Jordan’s mother, Delores, who was a huge influence on the basketball legend’s decision to sign the deal. Tucker signed on to play with Howard White, then a junior executive in the fledgling basketball division of Nike and who was a daily contact with the NBA’s roster after his time as a college basketball player at the University of Maryland. Wayans joins the cast as George Raffling, the leading college basketball coach (the first black coach in both the ACC and PAC 10), who met and befriended Jordan while working as an assistant coach on the 1984 U.S. Olympic gold-winning basketball team. Raveling was a dear friend of Vaccaro’s and, in search of Sonny, first introduced the idea of signing with Nike to Jordan.
Maher will play Peter Moore, the legendary designer for Nike (and later Adidas) who was behind the designs for the first Air Jordan sneakers, as well as the iconic “Wings” and “Jumpman” logos for the Air Jordan brand. Messina is David Falk, Jordan’s original agent, often credited with the name “Air Jordan.” Papa plays Stu Inman, while Tennon embodies Jordan’s father James.
Production on the project, directed by Affleck, recently began in Los Angeles. This is the first time Affleck has directed a movie starring Damon, and the two stars have also collaborated on the script, which was penned by Alex Convery and dubbed The Blacklist of 2021. The new project is the third screenplay for Affleck and Damon together, after 2021’s The Last Duel and Good Will. Academy Award winning Hunting.
Affleck and Damon are also producing the film alongside Peter Guber, Jason Michael Berman, Jeff Rubinoff, Madison Ainley and David Ellison. Executive producers include John Weinbach, Jesse Sisgold, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Kevin Halloran, Michael Joe, John Graham, Drew Fenton, Jordan Moldo, and Peter E. Strauss.
