Idris Elba Wanted To Play An NBA Legend In A Biopic But Was Rejected
Apparently, Idris Elba wanted to play an NBA superstar in a movie but was turned down by the very player himself after the request.
Idris Elba has shown the ability to play all kinds of characters during his time in Hollywood. He’s been a drug kingpin, a hard-nosed police detective, a Norse deity, an urban cowboy, a lawyer, a rebel forces leader, a DC superhero, and even voiced a popular video game character. It seems like he can do just about everything. But one role he wanted to play was actually rejected by a real-life NBA superstar himself. Maybe the greatest of them all. Apparently, Idris Elba approached Michael Jordan about playing His Airness in a biopic but Jordan wasn’t interested, shooting Elba down nearly immediately.
Idris Elba was appearing on the Complex’s Sneaker Shopping show (via MovieWeb) discussing various pieces of his career and the topic of wanting to play Michael Jordan came up. It seems that Elba had a face-to-face with MJ at some point and expressed a desire to play the basketball legend in a movie about his life off the court. But Jordan wasn’t having any of it, saying he wasn’t “ready” to have something like that go up on the big screen. To hear Elba tell it, Michael Jordan didn’t have to think all that much about it.
And that part makes sense because this surely isn’t the first time that Jordan has been approached to make a project about his life. Though one would have to expect a majority of those requests would be about playing Michael Jordan the athlete, not Michael Jordan the businessman as Elba was suggesting.
While it didn’t come up during this conversation with Idris Elba, remember we are only a couple of years removed from The Last Dance, an in-depth look at the Michael Jordan-era Bulls and everything that went into the final season the team ran together. It was a venture between ESPN and Netflix, putting together never-before-seen footage taken over the course of that year along with extensive interviews from Jordan, his teammates, rivals, coaches, celebrities, media folks, and more. Over the course of 10 episodes, we got about as comprehensive a look at Michael Jordan as we’ll ever hope to get.
As for Idris Elba, even though he isn’t going to get a shot at playing Michael Jordan, there’s still plenty coming up for the actor. He’s just coming off voicing Knuckles the Echidna in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and will have a series coming out on Paramount+ dedicated just to that character. And we were also just treated to the first trailer for Beast, a movie that will see him being hunted by a lion that’s out for blood. Plus, George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing just debuted at Cannes. It’s set for an August 31st release in the United States.
And finally, Idris Elba will also be returning to one of his best characters with Luther, a movie based on the BBC series he’s starred in for almost a decade. So really, this guy can do just about anything. But even with all that, Michael Jordan doesn’t see it happening in that kind of biopic. At least not yet.
