“I went into Air knowing the odds of it getting made were quite low, but the odds of every movie getting made are quite low,” says screenwriter Alex Convery of his screenplay about the famous Michael Jordan branded sports shoe.
“If you find something you’re passionate about and you find characters that you’re really connecting with and excited to write, it’s always better than writing something that was maybe more producible, but I wasn’t as passionate about,” he continues.
When you have a feeling to write something, you’ve got to chase it without thinking about producibility
Convery began writing Air during the COVID lockdown so the industry was in pause mode and he had time on his hands. “You take a couple months to write whatever you want.” Ultimately, it took the writer a year to complete his screenplay.
When An Opportunity Presents Itself
Alex was coming off a potential deal about a biopic about the Stan Lee and Jack Kirby Marvel Comics story, but that deal ultimately fell through despite the traction the project received. “That was really heartbreaking because I got a lot of positive feedback on the script. We even had an A-list actor attached to it,” Convery recalls.
The setback allowed Alex Convery to free himself of expectation and write with full creative intention rather than marketability. “I went into this thinking I’m going to write a really strong writing sample. Something that can get me a different job or something that will get my name back out there. Maybe it’ll make the Blacklist again?” This allowed Convery to make more bold choices on the page.
“My goal was to get the reader to keep turning the page and make it a really fun, fast, and propulsive read with characters that you wanted to spend time with and could root for.” The writer claims readability is the secret to successful scripts.
Michael Jordan (Damian Delano Young) Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios
Writing the well-documented story of Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) leading the charge to make a relatively unknown, but talented basketballer called Michael Jordan (Damian Delano Young) a household name in Nike footwear can be both a blessing and a curse. The events are well-known and audience knows how the story ends.
“It’s that classic story where the audience already knows the ending – like Titanic. That can present a lot of challenges in terms of keeping dramatic tension going and keeping the reader and the viewer surprised and interested. It all comes down to character. It’s how can you make this a human story.”
The shoe deal was always a trojan horse for a much more human story
Sonny Vaccaro is a character Alex Convery relates to. “I wasn’t thinking about it at the time, but he’s a guy working in an industry where it felt like all the odds were stacked against him and he was trying to do something impossible and everyone was telling him it’s not going to happen. Those are really fairly easy shoes to slip into as a struggling writer.”
Michael’s mother Dolores Jordon (Viola Davis) is also featured in Air in the pivotal role she played in the deal. Know your worth and don’t accept anything less.
Telling The Story Of Air
“With these type of biopic stories, I first try to gauge interest by talking very casually about them with family and friends. It’s not like I ever said, ‘I have this idea for a movie about Nike Air and how they signed Michael Jordan.’” Converse used to be the most popular basketball shoe and they should have signed Michael Jordan, but he wanted to sign with Adidas. Until Nike came along with an offer.
I call the ideas I chase – Big Little Movies
“At the end of the day, this is really a movie that takes place over a couple weeks, it’s about a business deal, there’s a couple central characters, but really it’s people in rooms talking.” The screenwriter elaborates that the visual scope of Air is small – no explosions or big action. But its scope is big in terms of its theme and characters.
The story of Nike and Michael Jordan becoming powerhouses in the sports industry are well known and Alex Convery decided to capitalize on this brand recognition and kill two birds with one stone.
Tone & Tenor
The screenwriter has acknowledged that Air contains large swathes of talky boardroom scenes with people barking down the phone as deals are being made. It also contains a surprising amount of humor.
“Having just seen Killers of the Flower Moon, a horrible American tragedy, has moments of great humor in it. I think the best comedies are all rooted in dramatic stakes,” he adds.
“There has to be something on the line, there has to be something at stake, there has to be tension, you have to care about the characters, and that’s all rooted in the core of drama. The best comedies all have that.”
“It’s just a reflection of life. Every day there’s moments of joy and sadness, and you can laugh and cry, within the same moment sometimes. It was a question of what places Sonny is in, and how can you relate that to the audience as quickly as possible. How can you really care about these characters? I think that’s really the screenwriter’s job at the end of the day.”
Making a read fun means modulating emotions. If a scene wasn’t working, Convery would go back to the core of the story or character and determine what excited him the most.
Tracking The Characters
Alex Convery likens juggling an ensemble cast to a game of basketball. “Who has the ball Who’s about to lose the ball? Who’s looking for the ball. Who has no chance of getting the ball and who’s gonna keep the ball?”
It all comes down to first principles of deciding what each character wants, how they’re going to get it, and what stands in their way. “The cleaner the better.” You should be able to tell the audience what each character wants in one sentence. Sonny Vaccaro wants to sign Michael Jordan. Everything and everyone stood in Sonny’s way including Adidas, an external force. Then he had to convince Phil Knight (Ben Affleck) from Nike and Jordan’s family. All the relationships are explored through conflict.
“Nike had just gone public and that forced Knight embrace philosophies and business practices that he did not agree with. He was this disruptor entrepreneur who broke the rules and that’s why Nike got to where it did in 1984. Now he’s answering to a board and he’s worried about Wall Street. You have this guy at a crossroads and ultimately his arc in the movie is about Sonny helping him re-embrace those same philosophies that are within him somewhere.” Alex Convery confesses that it was daunting to write Phil Knight’s character. Once the characters are clearly set up with tangible goals, “you let the characters fly and let the dialogue do the work.” Each character must take tangible steps towards those goals.
Alex Convery
“Sonny as an underdog was always very interesting to me. Dolores Jordan’s role and the deal and Michael Jordan’s upbringing in Wilmington was really interesting to me. He grew up and in a town, in a house with a backyard.”
Convery examines the idea of betting on yourself and asking for what you think you deserve in all his characters. “Average everyday people doing something rather extraordinary.”
Beyond Basketball
The frothy decade of greed is good and uncontrolled spending spilled over into sports during that time when it stopped simply being a sport, but rather a commodity to be traded.
“The ripples of this endorsement deal are still being felt today. That was always interesting to me because pretty much every all-star player in the NBA has their own shoe line and has a piece of that deal.”
Convery is a self-identified sports fan.
“I’m often questioned why do I care so much about the Chicago Bears. I don’t know anyone on that team. It’s just a uniform. It’s just the name. Why do I feel so much? I have no connection to them so why do I let their result, which I have no control over, affect my own emotions?”
“There’s a real interesting psychology in sport. I think what happens is, as you grow older, you start to care less about the team itself and you care more about the people. The team name and the uniform has no value unless there’s someone wearing the said uniform and doing amazing things in it.”
At the end of the day, pro-sports is an appreciation of the amazing things humans can do.
“The Nike Air shoe has zero value unless Michael Jordan’s putting up forty points a night, winning six titles, and being the person and the athlete that that he is.”
