The newly released ‘Air’ movie follows the story of Nike and their pursuit of Bulls legend Michael Jordan. For some fans who watched the film, however, they might have noticed one very strange detail: Damian Young, who plays a young MJ in the movie, never actually shows his face at any point in the production.
That was actually an intentional decision, as one of the movie’s producers, Ben Affleck, explained to Yahoo! News:
“Michael’s just too famous and too meaningful and too important and too much of an icon for me to believe, particularly given that there is only a couple of moments in the film that any actor could convince you that they, in fact, were Michael Jordan,” Affleck said. “[Just] his silhouette is recognizable around the world.
According to Affleck, Jordan is just too powerful to try and portray accurately in a film, so he decided to have him exist in the backdrop instead.
“And so I thought that it was actually more interesting that he exists above and outside, kind of in the clouds above everybody [and] everyone around him. And also, I’m mindful of the fact that this is not the Michael Jordan story. We didn’t go get his rights. He didn’t get paid, like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna tell your story, your childhood, your thing.’ This is not that. And so I didn’t think it was really appropriate, frankly, to use that. This is a story about other people. It’s a sort of a fable using that story… You know, you’re f***ing around with an extremely important figure in American history, and I wanted to just handle that as respectfully and carefully as I could.”
It’s an interesting direction for sure, but it’s clear the message wasn’t to tell another typical MJ story. Rather, it was to tell the story of the people and brands that were influenced by his legacy.
MJ’s Mother Helped Nike Pull Off Miracle Signing In 1984
It has been well documented that Jordan was actually looking at signing with Adidas before Nike came and changed everything with an offer he couldn’t refuse. But it was his mother, Deloris, who ultimately pushed him to meet with Nike execs and give them a real chance.
That decision obviously paid off extremely well for everyone, as MJ is worth over $1 billion today thanks to various investments and, of course, his massive empire at Nike.
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