Tag: Jamie Foxx

a/k/a Finding Mike

Status:  Announced
Genre:  Biography
Rating:  TBA
Director:  TBA
Studio(s):  Unknown
Cast:  Jamie Foxx

Details:  On June 24, 2020, Screen Rant reported, that a Mike Tyson biopic has been rumored for years, but it now appears to be in the works. Jamie Foxx will portray the former U.S. Heavyweight boxing champ, a Brooklyn native who rose to fame during the 1980s and intimidated opponents with his presence alone. Now 53 years old, Tyson has been planning a comeback in 2020, which means that the screenplay for Foxx’s biopic may not be technically complete.

Foxx was originally attached to the Tyson biopic in 2014. He later revealed that Terence Winter would write the screenplay and that Martin Scorsese would direct. In 2015, Foxx made the interview rounds and recalled befriending Tyson during the late ’80s after they met at a stand-up comedy show in Los Angeles. By 2017, Foxx told Screen Rant that the boxing project was still moving forward, and that Scorsese was indeed going to direct. Three and half years later, the buzz appears to be picking up again thanks to Tyson and Foxx’s recent Instagram posts. The boxer has been promoting a return to the ring, while the actor has continued to tease his role as Tyson.

In June 2020, Foxx confirmed that he’d been physically training for his role as Tyson. The actor shared exclusive photos of his upper body transformation, the result of an every-other-day regiment involving 60 pull-ups, 60 dips, and 100 push-ups. Foxx joked about his lack of calf muscle, and implied that prosthetics would be needed to complement his real-life training. However, the actor didn’t reveal anything about the script, the director, or the production schedule.  As of now, the biopic presumably won’t release until 2022 at the earliest. Foxx revealed that he’ll first need to adapt his body to align with Tyson’s early years, and will then need to gain weight for late-career sequences.

The first half of Finding Mike will likely explore Tyson’s personal and professional life prior to his 1991 arrest and subsequent imprisonment for rape. The second half of the Tyson biopic will theoretically explore his 1995 comeback and pop culture persona. Foxx has also stated that he wants to show the real Mike Tyson, and how the boxer found inner peace after the 2009 death of his four-year-old daughter, Exodus.

As for Tyson’s, ex Robin Givens, her career is on a new roll, but she’s “relieved” to be left out of the upcoming biopic.  Givens was married to Tyson in 1988 for eight months and alleged abuse, but says she has been “re-victimized” by the relationship for decades since Tyson has routinely trashed her publicly — from alleging that she took his millions to catching her in bed with Brad Pitt.  Givens, 55, was worried enough about her potential portrayal in a Tyson biopic that she sent a cease-and-desist from top lawyer Arthur Aidala, alleging that while she has “attempted to move on, she still finds herself fighting the abusive, demeaning and false accounts of their relationship by Mr. Tyson nearly 35 years later.”

But reps for Tyson, who has denied any abuse claims, told Page Six he has no plans to depict their relationship in his film.  Source(s):  Screen Rant; Page Six; Biography.com.