Matt Damon and Ben Affleck came together after years to start their very own production company, Artists Equity. And they started it with the feature film Air, based on the Air Jordan partnership between NBA superstar Michael Jordan and the athletic footwear and apparel company, Nike. The movie was released last year, starring Damon in the lead, and Affleck in the directorial chair.
The story for the movie was written by Alex Convery, who was pretty sure that no one would actually make this movie. The character of Sonny Vaccaro, played by Damon, is a sports marketing executive. And the story is of how he, in a way singlehandedly, established the Nike Air Jordan partnership and took the company to the heights of success.
Air Writer Never Thought The Movie Would Ever Be Made
Air (2023) was written by Alex Convery, which on paper, was his first screenwriting foray. The story he wrote was based on true events, where a Nike employee pursues then-rookie Basketball player Michael Jordan for a business deal, which goes on to become the uber-successful Nike Air Jordan line of sports shoes. In a conversation with Gold Derby, Convery admitted that the script started as a mere spec script, and he had not even thought that it would end up being made into a movie.
No one would be crazy enough to make this movie. [But] in a way that freed me to take some chances on the page and really focus on the script as a document to be read first and foremost.
Having his very first script produced and directed by an Oscar winner like Ben Affleck was just the cherry on top. And again, bagging such an amazing and acclaimed ensemble cast, led by Matt Damon, was nothing short of a Hollywood miracle in itself. Air currently has an RT score of 97% and Convery could not be happier that his first ever-produced project gained such positive reviews from fans and critics.
The “frustrating” Part of Getting a Movie Made
Although Air was his first ever produced script, this is not the first time Convery has written a screenplay. Whether it gets made in not depends on how good the script is, and even more on if someone wants to make a movie out of the script. In the same conversation with Gold Derby, he said:
I’ve had to rewire my brain to worry less about results and just focus everything in on the process… That’s one of the frustrating things about being a writer is that the decision to actually make a movie is not your own.
He also added:
One of the great joys of this was the joy of creation and the work itself. We’re all doing the same thing, right? We’re all sitting at Final Draft, just typing away. And that was freeing in a way.
Air is available for viewing on Amazon Prime.
