Ben Affleck as Phil Knight in Air
Courtesy of Amazon Studios
Ben Affleck showed the world premiere of his new film Air at the South by Southwest Film & TV Festival in Austin on Saturday and was quick to make it clear how much he wanted his Amazon Studios project to be a success.
“Tonight is the most important night of my professional life,” Affleck declared from the stage, making some self-deprecating references to previous projects that weren’t very popular. “This is an upbeat, hopeful film about people. So I can’t hide behind being an author – [as if to say] ‘You don’t need to understand my film.’ I really hope you enjoy it… So no pressure but it’s entirely up to you.”
Affleck directed and co-starred in Air, a biographical drama chronicling Nike’s revolutionary creation of the Air Jordan footwear line. Judging by the reaction of the premiere audience, Affleck needn’t have worried about his reception – the film and its cast of scene-stealers received a rapturous ovation. Air stars Matt Damon as the Nike executive who signed Michael Jordan for his first sneaker deal. Affleck plays Nike CEO Phil Knight, and the film also stars Viola Davis, Jason Bateman, Marlon Wayans, Chris Tucker and Chris Messina.
Damon called his role — and being reunited with his “best friend” and longtime collaborator Affleck — “the greatest job I’ve ever had.”
“I showed up every day and had five to seven [script] Sides working with actors like that was ridiculous,” Damon said. “I’ve never had more fun. Ben and I – from the moment we read it [Alex Convery’s] Script to the last cut that we did in the edit – it was just an absolute joy.”
Davis – whom Affleck called “the best actor I’ve ever seen” – spoke about what it meant to her to play Jordan’s protective, enterprising mother, Deloris. “Deloris and my mother were born into a generation of people whose dreams were their children. It’s the size of Jim Crow. It’s the height at which black people are told their dreams don’t matter. So far it’s like a miracle that she has this big vision for her son and believes in it with all her heart. It was an honor to play Deloris.”
Bateman seemed stunned by the audience’s reaction to the film: “I couldn’t believe how much screaming and yelling there was [during the screening],” he said. “What Ben and Matt were able to make of this story … it’s an American business story and they made a rock show out of it. They were kind of able to amplify what Michael Jordan means to all of us — which already does “It was the pinnacle of greatness and excitement. I’ll never think about Michael Jordan or Air Jordans like that again because of what Ben was able to do with that movie and create that feeling that we all just had.”
In a rather bold creative decision, Jordan himself isn’t featured directly in the film, which Affleck explained to avoid having an actor embody a larger-than-life living legend that audiences were already so familiar with. “There was no way I ever wanted an audience to believe that someone else was Michael Jordan,” he said. “Which, honestly, was out of my own self-interest because I knew it would ruin the film.” He added, “This is not a documentary. This isn’t meant to be the absolutely perfect story of who did what and what said… all faults in the film are mine.”
Affleck said he showed the film to the real Phil Knight, “and halfway through I realized that might have been a gigantic mistake,” given how the film somewhat satirizes the Nike co-founder. “But people like to make fun of the boss, it’s part of the work culture,” he says. “I’ve been known to occasionally appear in a meme.”
However, he said he avoided contact with Nike and its executives during the film’s development and production. “I didn’t want to have any communication or contact or accept anything from Nike because I didn’t want to be accused of doing propaganda or advertising or changing anything to ingratiate myself with them.” Still, it’s hard to imagine Nike from the extremely positive representation of his company in the film is not enthusiastic.
In ‘s recent cover story on Affleck, the actor-director spoke about the film and how he approached directing a film where American society intersects with Black culture. “I would not make a film whose central premise is the appropriation of black culture for profit by white Americans,” he said. “It’s not my movie. I’m telling a story that’s about a combination of things, and that’s one aspect of it. I won’t leave it out because it would only add to the disrespect. What I’m going to do is talk to people who understand it better than I do and who can help me contextualize it, and that’s it [costume designer] Karl [Antoinette Jones], that was viola. Chris [Tucker], he gave me monologues, he gave me scenes, and it was very organic. And so I thought, ‘I want Chris to get paid as a writer too. I want to be very clear that he brings a voice to this film.’”
Air will be Amazon’s first film to hit theaters without a simultaneous release on Prime Video. The film hits theaters on April 5th.