Ryan Coogler and Peter Nicks on Making a Doc About Steph Curry: ‘We’ve All Been, at Some Point in Our Lives, Overlooked and Underrated’

variety.com:

Addie Morfoot Contributor Oakland natives Ryan Coogler and Peter Nicks met in 2012 when Cooglar was making “Fruitville Station” and needed help securing access to a location.

Nicks, who was finishing his first feature documentary, “The Waiting Room, came to the rescue. Nine years later, Cooglar hired Nicks to run the nonfiction arm of his production company Proximity Media, which has a five-year overall exclusive television deal with The Walt Disney Co.

The fruits of that partnership have been revealed this summer. Proximity’s first feature documentary, “Anthem,” which Nicks directed, was released in June on Hulu.

On July 21, Nicks’ “Stephen Curry: Underrated” will debut on Apple TV +. The doc, which chronicles the NBA star’s life and career, made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January. “When I heard that Ryan was starting a company, I put together this little PowerPoint presentation and pitched him,” remembers Nicks. “I said, ‘Hey, are you guys going to support nonfiction?’ I don’t know how deeply they were thinking about it, but I really felt that under an umbrella like Proximity, nonfiction could not only flourish, but we could do a lot to help grow nonfiction stories and present them to mainstream audiences.” Variety spoke to Coogler and Nicks prior to the SAG/AFTRA strike about consolidation, Steph Curry, and whether or not Coogler would ever direct a documentary. Has all of the corporate consolidation going on impacted Proximity? Coogler: I think it’s like affected everybody.