Longtime friends and collaborators Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have signed on to team up on another project. The duo will star in a biopic about Nike executive Sonny Vaccaro and his relationship with company co-founder Steve Knight, and their dogged pursuit of a partnership with NBA legend Michael Jordan. Damon will portray Vaccaro and Affleck will play Knight.
The story of Vaccaro and Knight is fairly well-known at this point, having been covered in Knight’s memoir Shoe Dog and Jordan’s docuseries The Last Dance. The film will focus on Vaccaro’s quest to sign Jordan to what was then the third-place shoe company, a journey that took him to Jordan’s parents, particularly his dynamic mother, as well as coaches and friends.
Jordan will reportedly be a mythic figure hovering above the movie and never seen, even as Vaccaro tries to reach him by gaining access to those close to him.
The six-time NBA champion has seen a cultural resurgence thanks to the immense success of The Last Dance and, to a lesser extent, the recent Space Jam sequel, so it makes sense for another project to center around his larger-than-life persona and brand. The movie will be the first film for David Ellison‘s newly created Skydance Sports.
Affleck and Damon recently teamed up on Ridley Scott‘s The Last Duel. There’s also a project based on the McDonald’s Monopoly scam floating around that the two were attached to, but there hasn’t been much word about that for a while.
Affleck recently starred in Adrian Lyne‘s Deep Water alongside Ana de Armas, and will next be seen reprising his role as Bruce Wayne/Batman in The Flash. Damon is currently filming Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer.
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