Michael Jordan and the Nike shoe that has become an icon – Corriere.it

What is the impression it leaves Air-The story of the great leapthe film that narrates the birth of the famous line of shoes designed by Michael Jordan
destined to become one of the greatest basketball players – if not the greatest, just to reopen a probably endless debate – in the history of basketball?

Apart from the positive judgment on the 112 minutes that slip away in one breath, the answer is that there is now a very clear pattern in recounting American sports events: one that provides a realistic setting with respect to the days in which the events develop – almost as if you were entering a time machine – with high rhythms and a narration that involves without pause. it was the same for Winning timethe television series on the Los Angeles Lakers epic of showtime which in Italy was broadcast by Sky Atlantic.

Air – The story of the great leap, film co-produced by Artists Equity, Amazon Studios, Mandalay Pictures, Skydance Media and distributed by Amazon and Warner Bros, tells the story of the agreement between Nike and Michael Jordan for the creation of the iconic line of sporting goods.

The Oscar winner Matt Damon plays the main character, Sonny Vaccaro, who in reality and in the company was responsible for the basketball sectionwhile the two-time Academy Awards winner Ben Affleck is directing the filmas well as playing Nike founder Phil Knight. In the cast also Jason Bateman (the Marty Byrde of the Ozark series broadcast by Netflix), Chris Tucker (plays Howard White, the vice president of the Nike Jordan brand), Chris Messina (Jordan’s agent, David Falk), Matthew Maher (says Peter Moore, the inventor of the cult shoes that died in 2022, a month before filming began), Marlon Wayans (aka George Raveling, the coach who played a key part in MJ’s decision) and above all Viola Davis, herself an Oscar winner, who played the role of Deloris Jordan, the player’s mother.

If Damon-Vaccaro provides the backbone of the film, Davis-Jordan the second anchor of the plot. Her son’s decision would pass through her and so it was: persuaded by Vaccaro that Nike, at the time already established in athletics but only the third force on the market after Adidas and Converse, wanted to invest not so much in the basketball player as in the man, led to successful negotiation also snatching the famous percentage of sales. Today again Michael Jordan brings in 400 million dollars a year in royalties for the shoe that bears his name and which, in violation of the NBA’s chromatic provisions (it was too red), cost the manufacturer $5,000 fine for every game played. A fine that Nike willingly paid in the face of the success of a shoe that has become iconic.

A piece of Milan in the production

Staying away from the risk of spoilers, given that the film has just been released in Italy (in theaters from April 5, 2023), we offer you some curiosities, also mentioned by the Cinefily website and an article by Ciro Brandi. The first that in this production there is a piece of Milan. Artist Equity, of which Air is the first project, was in fact founded at the end of 2022 from Affleck and Damon and from Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital, owner of the Rossoneri club. Cardinale sees a future in which sports clubs will be companies of culture. Culture and individuals – he explains – are increasingly becoming intellectual property in themselves, while a great fragmentation is taking place in sport and in the media that creates spaces. Sport today only one leg of the stool: not enough to prevent him from falling. Hence the search for new models, which I help build, to reduce the gap. I am convinced that Milan too will be able to benefit greatly from this vision and from our commitment.

A 7 million trailer

As for the other goodies, here they are in sequence: it was Michael Jordan who wanted it Viola Davis as his mother and was the only non-negotiable request made to Affleck; Viola Davis and Julius Tennon (who plays Michael’s father) are also married in real life; the trailer presented at the last football Super Bowl cost 7 million dollars; the screenplay, written in 2021 by Alex Convery, entered the Black List of the best unproduced (Amazon Studios would have bought it in April 2022); Jordan always asked that the story also talk about Howard White, his friend and curator, as mentioned, of the shoe brand; George Raveling was not only a high-level coach, but as a coach he fought against racial discrimination in the world of basketball and still retains the original writings of Martin Luther King, starting with the legendary speech I have a dream; in the USA the film is forbidden to minors under 17 years unaccompanied by adults due to the presence of bad language; it will seem strange and impossible – while it is true -: Jordan never appears, not even when he goes with his parents to the interview at Nike. Only a fleeting view of him from behind.