The Ben Affleck-directed Nike film Air from Amazon Studios, Skydance Sports and Mandalay Pictures is set to close out the SXSW Film Festival in a surprise showing ahead of its global April 5th theatrical release, Deadline can confirm.
The screening is expected to take place at Austin, TX’s Paramount Theatre at 6:30 p.m on March 18. The film reteaming Affleck on screen with his Good Will Hunting co-star Matt Damon tells the story of how maverick sneaker salesman Sonny Vaccaro (Damon) led a fledgling running shoe company called Nike in its pursuit of the most transformative athlete in the history of sports: Michael Jordan.
Affleck portrays Nike co-founder Phil Knight in the story surrounding Nike’s longshot effort to sign Jordan to its shoe company in the mid-’80s, an endorsement that seemed impossible at the time but which would become the most significant relationship between an athletic brand and an athlete and launched the global, multibillion-dollar contemporary sneaker industry.
Air‘s ensemble also includes Jason Bateman, Viola Davis, Chris Tucker, Marlon Wayans, Chris Messina, Matthew Maher, Tom Papa, Julius Tennon and more.
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