Did you know that Michael Jordan earns $400 million a year and passive income due to the percentage he makes from the sale of Air Jordans? To understand how this happened, we have to go back to the 1980s and the famous brand of sneakers Nike, in Ben Affleck’s last film. Air. Written by Alex Convery, the film stars Affleck, Matt Damon, Viola Davis, Chris Messina, Chris Tucker, Jason Bateman and Julius Tennon.
Sonny Vaccaro (Damon) likes to play, which shows that he likes to take risks. He works for Nike CEO Phil Knight (Affleck) in the company’s basketball division. He’s looking for upcoming b-ball plays and pitching them shoe endorsement deals, and currently he’s got his eye on 18-year-old Michael Jordan. Sonny thinks Jordan is worth the full price they’re offering ($250,000), as does Vaccaro adviser Howard White (Tucker), but Knight and VP of Marketing Robert Strasser (Bateman) think it’s worth it. it is a handicap to do so. He tries to get a meeting with Jordan by talking with his agent David Falk (Messina), but the athlete is more interested in signing with Adidas.
Not intending to give up, Vaccaro steps over the chain of command and flies to North Carolina to speak to Jordan’s parents, Delores (Davis) and James (Tennon). With two shoe approval meetings coming up with Adidas and Converse, Sonny asks her mom to reconsider her conversation with Nike and warns her of what to expect when approaching these companies. As Nike CEO Falk and Strasser ask him to close the deal or lose his job, Vaccaro deploys clever maneuvers to secure the client and stay employed.
In his fifth feature film, Affleck’s talents exceed expectations. He grew up as an actor and a director, but he’s best doing both. I don’t know how he does it. The organization and patience needed to balance all of these must be stressful, but I can’t tell because it never transpires. In Air, Affleck makes great use of aerial shots showing just how big some of these corporate campuses are. A staple of his visual style is the desaturated scenes which use a mixture of green and blue which matches the tone of his previous work, but he changes it here by increasing the brightness and color which made the viewing experience full. of hope.
Air has the best cast with some of Hollywood’s greatest. Each of them gives an award-worthy performance, it’s hard to pick which one is a favorite, and such a rarity for a good game at any level. I saw two performances by Affleck at SXSW, and you can just tell when he’s excited about a project and when he calls it. Convery’s script has all the elements to invoke the energy necessary to achieve this.
Delores Jordan is responsible for her son’s career today. Despite Nike’s resistance, she was able to broker a deal where Michael gets an aggregate percentage of every Air Jordan shoe sold. Her position was that she knew the value of her son and that “A shoe is just a shoe…until my son steps into it.” The goal was to create shoes that reflect his personality and give fans something that will bring them closer to the Chicago Bulls player.
Seeing Air, and how the world’s most popular sneaker came to be makes me think of how the shoe has evolved nearly 40 years later. People rob, kill and die for a pair. It’s crazy to think of this trajectory starting innocently and turning customers into rabid consumers. Of course, that’s not Jordan’s problem, but this story puts things into perspective. So many white men were controlling his career, I’m glad to see some kind of on-screen advocacy for athletes like Mike and others like him, because this deal with Nike changed the sneaker and basketball industry- ball in a monumental way.