Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are joining forces once more as it’s been reported that the pair will star, co-write and co-produce a forthcoming movie about basketball star Michael Jordan and his signing with Nike in the ’80s — a move that would propel the sneaker industry to become a multi-billion-dollar business in years to come.
While the film’s official title is still in development, Amazon Studios and Skydance Sports are finalizing the deal, which will see Ben take on the role of Nike co-founder Phil Knight while Matt plays American executive and former sports marketing honcho Sonny Vaccaro, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The publication further described the upcoming motion picture as a “story around Nike’s longshot effort to sign rising superstar basketball player Michael Jordan to its shoe company in the mid-eighties,” when it was uncommon for athletes to sign long-running endorsement deals with athletic brands.
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Signing the basketball legend to Nike “seemed impossible at the time but thanks to the maverick sneaker salesman, would become the most significant relationship between an athletic brand and an athlete. The deal launched the global, multi-billion-dollar contemporary sneaker industry and also helped the sport do the same.”
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While the project is still in its early stages of development, Ben and Matt signing on to lead the film becomes the third movie they have worked on as a duo, having previously won an Academy Award for penning the script of their critically-acclaimed 1997 flick Good Will Hunting. The two Hollywood stars and childhood friends then teamed up again to write the screenplay and appear in last year’s The Last Duel, co-starring Jodie Comer, and Adam Driver.
In September 2021, Ben, who recently popped the question to fiancée Jennifer Lopez for a second time, discussed his close relationship with Matt during his chat with GQ, where he told the publication that navigating through Hollywood with someone he’s known for four decades has made the ride that much easier.
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The father-of-three has openly admitted to battling alcoholism in the past, which heavily plagued his marriage to ex-wife Jennifer Garner, whom he divorced in 2018 following years of conflicted issues stemming from Ben’s addiction. While talking to GQ, Ben credited Matt for helping him stay levelheaded during times when things weren’t exactly looking too good for the Argo star, yet he always had his pal to depend on.
He said, “I can’t speak for Matt, but my own kind of sanity and mental health really benefited from having someone who I grew up with and knew as a child who was also going through something similar—this 20-year-plus journey of being in the public eye—who I could reflect on it with honestly, talk things over with, be myself with, who I knew why we were friends, why he was interested and loved me, why I loved him.”