Longtime friends and collaborators, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are set to reunite on a Nike sports drama for Amazon Studios, Skydance Sports and Mandalay Pictures.
The untitled story follows how Sonny Vaccaro (Damon), 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 that surrounds 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.
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Affleck will also direct the feature. Alex Convery wrote the original script, titled ‘Air Jordan.’ Affleck and Damon are doing a new pass on the script and will produce. The pair famously co-wrote and starred together in Gus Van Sant’s 1997 film ‘Good Will Hunting,” which won them an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. They also recently reteamed for Ridley Scott’s film ‘The Last Duel.’
The former ‘Batman’ star previously directed films including ‘Gone Baby Gone,’ ‘The Town,’ Best Picture Oscar winner ‘Argo’ and ‘Live by Night.’
