Michael Jordan Had a Very Specific Condition For Ben Affleck's Air
April 5th will see the release of a highly anticipated Ben Affleck's movie Air, a story about Michael Jordan and that seminal Nike collaboration (hence the name of the movie).
What is less known though is that Jordan has had some thoughts of his own about how movie could look like, from the very beginning.
With the movie being a true Ben Affleck 's love letter to Jordan and his sneakers alike, it's easy to believe that the director went with Jordan's suggestions.
There were at least two of them. First of all, Jordan insisted on including Howard White, vice president of the Jordan brand, in the movie.
This gave Affleck an opportunity to cast Chris Tucker. Turns out, it has long been a dream of his to sat Tucker in one of his movies.
As Affleck shared during SXSW festival, this was not the only condition Michael Jordan had for the movie. The second Jordan's condition was one of a much larger scale. But Affleck was just happy to deliver.
As Jordan wished for his mother's role in the movie to be very prominent, he has personally asked for legendary actress Viola Davis to star as his mom. A star alliance made in Hollywood heaven, to be honest.
Casting Viola Davis herself in a movie seemed to have been a dream come true for Affleck as well. And who can blame him. After all, Viola Davis is one of the most renowned performers of our day and age. She's an EGOT, for crying out loud.
As Affleck himself put it, "honest to God, I always felt that if I was a director one day, and I had Viola Davis in a movie, that would really be something. That would mean the world to me. And it does."
The director shared this sentiment at a recently held SXSW festival.
The movie Air, which stars Affleck as Nike co-founder and windbreaker-wearer Phil Knight, and Matt Damon as the guy who convinced Jordan to sign the Nike deal, will come out on April 5th and the fans will get to see for themselves what the fuss was all about.