HOLLYWOOD
Karl-Anthony Towns, an NBA All-Star with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
This month, Apple said it is working with Thirty Five Media and Oscar-winning producer Brian Grazer to develop the drama “Swagger,” partly inspired by Durant’s rough-and-tumble adolescence.
“I’m looking forward to giving my input and sharing my insight,” Durant said.
NBA players as Hollywood hotshots? The notion isn’t so farfetched, given that one of the world’s biggest film stars, Dwayne Johnson, is a former pro wrestler.
Los Angeles is crawling with basketball royalty turned rookie producers. LeBron James and Kobe Bryant hope to build substantial entertainment companies that tap into the billions of dollars that Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are pouring into original programming. Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs, Blake Griffin of the Detroit Pistons and the retired Steve Nash have scripted projects in progress, too.
“Uncle Drew,” a comedy starring Boston Celtics guard Kyrie Irving, will arrive June 29 in theaters.
“Celebrity and name recognition is currency in Hollywood,” said Todd Boyd, a cinema and media-studies professor at the University of Southern California.
Boyd also noted that the entertainment business is under pressure to diversify.
Still, success on the court doesn’t ensure success in Hollywood.
The most serious of the NBC stars has been James, whose SpringHill Entertainment has financial backing from Warner Bros. Early efforts include “The Wall,” a game show that premiered in 2016 on NBC. SpringHill has at least 10 series and three films in the works, including “Space Jam 2” and a re-imagining of the 1990 hip-hop comedy “House Party.”
SpringHill, which James co-founded with Maverick Carter, a childhood friend from Akron and his business manager, also has built a sports-centric video and podcast platform called Uninterrupted.
A sample offering: “As the number of platforms and distribution channels grows — social media, Amazon, Netflix — there is a big need for unique content and high-quality storytelling that can cut through the noise,” said Carter, chief executive of SpringHill.
Because James is still playing basketball with the Cleveland Cavaliers, he isn’t sitting in many production meetings. But Bryant, who retired in 2016 after two decades with the Los Angeles Lakers, is taking the opposite approach to building his Granity Studios.
“He’s working on a bunch of novels — fiction but rooted in sport — and will be building shows and films from there,” said Molly Carter, Granity’s chief marketing officer.
In the near term, Bryant has a basketballanalysis show, “Detail,” headed for ESPN. And he will appear March 4 at the Academy Awards as an Oscor nominee for producing “Dear Basketball,” an animated short based on a poem he wrote.
Hollywood has a history of casting athletes, who come with builtin fan bases and often exude a natural magnetism on screen. Starting in the 1930s, Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller starred in a dozen “Tarzan” films.
Among NBA players, Michael Jordan appeared as himself in the original “Space Jam,” which took in $337 million worldwide in 1996. Shaquille O’Neal, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson have tried acting, producing and hosting, with mixed results.
The current NBA stars are a bit different. With James leading the way, some are trying to build production businesses that can thrive over the long term.
“LeBron has done such a great job so far,” Durant said. “It’s like, ‘Wow, this can actually be done.’”