'Air': Ben Affleck and Matt Damon Film Gets Prime Video Release Date

By Brian Jones

The sports film Air will be on Prime Video very soon. On Tuesday, Amazon Studios announced that the movie that stars Ben Affleck and Matt Damon will premiere on the streaming service on May 12. This comes after Air was released in theatres on April 5 and grossed $79 million at the box office. Air also earned strong reviews as it received a 92 percent critics score and a 98 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. 

As the official synopsis states, Air "reveals the unbelievable game-changing partnership between a then-rookie Michael Jordan and Nike's fledgling basketball division, which revolutionized the world of sports and contemporary culture with the Air Jordan brand. This moving story follows the career-defining gamble of an unconventional team with everything on the line, the uncompromising vision of a mother who knows the worth of her son's immense talent, and the basketball phenom who would become the greatest of all time."

Affleck, who is also the director, stars at Nike co-founder Phil Knight. Damon plays Nike executive Sonny Vaccaro, with Jason Bateman as Rob Strasser, Chris Messina as David Falk, Matthew Maher as Peter Moore, Marlon Wayans as George Raveling, Chris Tucker as Howard White, Viola Davis as Deloris Jordan, and Gustaf Skarsgård as Horst Dassler. 

One of the things that stood out is Jordan's face is never shown in the movie, and Affleck explained why he made that big decision. "Michael Jordan is so famous that I truly felt if we ever saw an actor playing it would be hard to get the audience to suspend their disbelief, because, in my opinion, there's no convincing anybody that someone who isn't Michael Jordan is Michael Jordan," Affleck said.

"We felt a more interesting way to tell the story would be for him to exist in the ether of the movie. To be talked about by everyone but not seen is somewhat analogous to the experience of celebrities and sports stars in modern life because most people go their whole lives without ever meeting or seeing their favorite sports star or celebrity in person. So we only see Michael in clips and flashes. We don't ever fully see him in person because to see him in person would be to put his feet on the ground in a way that the movie doesn't want to do."

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