The Hollywood Reporter (Weekly)
White Men Can’t Jump First Scored 31 Years Ago
During a fraught time for L.A., the team behind the 1992 original White Men Can’t Jump took a shot on a personal story about the bonds forged through pickup basketball. Writer-director Ron Shelton — who had helmed 1989’s Bull Durham, earning himself an Oscar nom for the script — got the idea for the film from his weekday routine: After working on screenplays in the morning, he would head to the Hollywood YMCA near his office to shoot hoops at lunch. White Men producer David V. Lester recalls Shelton’s fascination with the athletes’ squabbles and chatter. “It annoyed him at first because he just wanted a workout, but the writer in him saw the magic of these momentto-moment relationships on the basketball court,” Lester tells THR. In the comedy, L.A. streetball players Sidney (Wesley Snipes) and Billy (Woody Harrelson) team up to hustle competitors who take Billy for an easy mark based on his looks. Actors auditioning for the leads had to prove their skills on the court; Harrelson was a lifelong player and more adept than Snipes, who didn’t have a basketball background but benefited from his training in dance and martial arts. Rosie Perez’s spirited take on Billy’s girlfriend, Gloria, at her audition led filmmakers to retool the character, who was more uptight in the original script. 20th Century Fox released the film on March 27, 1992, and it collected $76 million ($164 million today). Tyra Ferrell, who played Sidney’s wife, Rhonda, praises the film — released almost exactly a year after Rodney King was assaulted by LAPD officers, and a month before the unrest that followed their acquittal — for centering on one of
“very few venues where Black men can truly express their power,” namely the basketball court. The film’s legacy lives on, as director Calmatic’s remake of the same name, starring Sinqua Walls and Jack Harlow, hits Hulu on May 19. Snipes tells THR that he attributes his version’s staying power to “the feel-good effect the film has on the viewer.”