‘Air’ screenwriter Alex Convery: By the end, 'you’re almost rooting against Nike’
CHICAGO — Many famous hands collaborated on director Ben Affleck’s “Air,” now in theaters. “Argo” style, with shoes instead of hostages, it sells a rousing, semi-fictionalized version of events surrounding the invention of Nike’s Air Jordan shoe line; the gumption of Nike marketing executive Sonny Vaccaro (portrayed by Matt Damon), among others, in securing Michael Jordan for an unprecedented sponsorship deal; and the backstory of how a “film nerd” (his phrase) from Chicago’s western suburbs grew up to be Alex Convery.
Until “Air,” Convery was part of Los Angeles’ great ocean of unproduced screenwriters, though he’d come a lot closer than most. In his 20s, he had two of his scripts on the coveted Black List, an annual shortlist of unproduced screenplays. Last year, Convery made Variety’s “10 Screenwriters to Watch.” By then, “Air” had happened. The writer found a champion through Mandalay Pictures head Peter Guber, one of the forces behind ESPN’s “The Last Dance.” Then Affleck and Damon got interested. Suddenly (or finally) Convery went from unproduced to produced, by way of Affleck and Damon’s production company Artists Equity.
