“The Legend of Bagger Vance” was released Nov. 3, 2000.
It’s the fourth highest grossing golf movie of all-time. It’s ranks seventh on IMDB among the best golf movies. It features three huge Hollywood actors – Matt Damon, Charlize Theron and Will Smith – and a big-time director, Robert Redford.
And on Nov. 3, 2024, “The Legend of Bagger Vance” turns 24.
Released in theaters just after Halloween in 2000, the movie got 3 ½ stars from movie critic Roger Ebert, who wrote:
Robert Redford’s “The Legend of Bagger Vance” could be a movie about prayer, music or mathematics because it is really about finding yourself at peace with the thing you do best. Most of the movie is about an epic golf tournament, but it is not a sports movie in any conventional sense. It is the first zen movie about golf.
When and where does the movie take place?
The movie is set in Savannah, Georgia, in 1931, two years into the Depression that was gripping the country. Theron plays Adele, the daughter of a man who built a golf course but then goes broke and commits suicide. Facing financial hardship herself, Adele stages a $10,000 golf tournament and invites Bobby Jones (played by Joel Gretsch) and Walter Hagen (portrayed by Bruce McGill). She also talks local golf legend Rannulph Junuh (Matt Damon’s character) into competing. He was the best golfer in the Savannah area before going off to World War I and coming back a broken man.
Where was the movie filmed?
The Legend of Bagger Vance was shot at Colleton River Club in South Carolina. The golf course’s website notes that “Colleton River was scouted for its classic and iconic courses and Lowcountry scenery.” The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island was also used in the movie.
Matt Damon did not have any previous experience playing golf; he spent a month with golf pro Tim Moss in Hilton Head, South Carolina, to prepare for the role.
The film cast includes four Oscar winners: Will Smith, Matt Damon, Charlize Theron and Jack Lemmon. It was also the last film Lemmon appeared in. He died June 27, 2001, about eight months after the movie’s release.
The last hole is actually not real. At the cost of $200,000, it was temporary, as filmmakers were trying not to disturb club activities.
How much money did The Legend of Bagger Vance make?
The highest-grossing golf movies according to box office earnings:
Tin Cup (1996) – $54 million
Happy Gilmore (1996) – $41 million
Caddyshack (1980) – $39 million
The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) – $30 million
The Greatest Game Ever Played (2005) – $15 million
Nolan’s next project has reportedly been dated for July 17, 2026, with fellow Oscar winner Matt Damon in talks to star and reunite with the director for a third time, per Deadline’s Justin Kroll.
As is typical with Nolan films, this next project will reportedly feature an IMAX release, per Deadline.
Kroll added that an early 2025 shoot for the new movie is expected, which means further casting will start to filter in in the months to come.
We talked with The Instigators’ Matt Damon and Casey Affleck about the future of movies and PVOD.
While promoting his 2021 drama Stillwater on the popular internet interview show Hot Ones, Oscar winner Matt Damon discussed with poignancy how the “decline of the DVD” has impacted how certain films are made in Hollywood.
While you won’t have much trouble getting a Marvel or Star Wars film off the ground these days, certain types of higher-budget films geared for adults have struggled to find their permanent place in the ever-changing cinematic landscape.
Audiences aren’t packing theaters on weekends for star-driven courtroom thrillers, buddy comedies or crime dramas with consistency like they used to in the 1990s, a time when Damon built his star power (like Good Will Hunting, The Rainmaker and Rounders) and leveraged it to make the kinds of adult-focused movies that reached beyond the visual effects and intellectual properties of Hollywood blockbusters.
As Damon told Hot Ones‘ Sean Evans in that interview, the decline of home video sales has put more pressure on immediate box office totals to make the difference for films, whereas home video revenue used to provide a buffer for certain films that didn’t immediately find their audiences in theaters.
At its peak, physical media sales indeed gave those films a second chance to break even financially and get more of a chance to get greenlit in the first place. The rise of streaming and digital film releases put a major dent into the home video market that it has never fully recovered from.
“The DVD was a huge part of our business, of our revenue stream,” Damon said in the interview. “Technology has just made that obsolete. And so the movies that we used to make, you could afford to not make all of your money when it played in the theater because you knew you had the DVD coming behind the release, and six months later, you’d get a whole [other] chunk. It would be like reopening the movie, almost.
“And when that went away, that changed the type of movies that we could make.”
The production company’s latest venture, the Apple TV+ heist comedy The Instigators, puts Damon and fellow Oscar winner Casey Affleck (Ben’s brother) in the exact type of movie that used to staff fall Fridays at the multiplex in the 1990s. That film kicked off a brief run in theaters on Aug. 2 before hitting the Apple TV+ streaming service on Aug. 9.
After Apple saw it and Sony’s July space race romantic comedy Fly Me to the Moonstruggle at the box office and rerouted it and Sony’s September crime comedy Wolfs with George Clooney and Brad Pitt to the same, quick theater-to-streaming window of The Instigators, it begs the question of this is the new path for Apple TV+ in how they release certain adult-oriented projects with recognizable talent that may not be guarantees at the box office. Apple plans to reportedly rein in its Hollywood spending in general, which could impact the funds put into press and advertisement needed for theatrical release.
Indeed, as opposed to typical theatrical runs, starry projects like The Instigators and Wolfs may well go to streaming quickly after theaters, if they reach theaters at all. Even the films that do make it to wide release can have their theatrical windows shortened substantially so they’re available at home for digital purchase with the premium video on demand offering.
The PVOD boom heightened out of necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic and now provides a particularly fascinating wrinkle to the financial equation for individual films. The 2022 Viking epic The Northman didn’t perform well at the box office, for example, but it reportedly was a financial win for Focus Features in part because of PVOD sales. Typically going for roughly the same amount of money ($19.99) as a single DVD purchase would have in the 2000s, will this newer stream of revenue buffet a bit of where home video sales have fallen off?
To Damon, there isn’t enough data just yet on PVOD sales to see if they’re a real boost to making more adult-driven projects.
“I don’t think, right now, it’s enough to kind of move the needle in the sense that it’s changing the movies that people are making,” Damon told For the Win about PVOD while promoting The Instigators. “Everyone’s still trying to figure it out. There’s all these downstream revenues… It does still feel like, as you can kind of see for all the different strategies of the streamers, and some give releases to theatrical releases.
“It just feels still like things are still shaking out. We’re in this big period of disruption, so I kind of feel like there’s not enough data yet… I think there are really creative ways, and we’re trying to do some of that with Artists Equity.”
Damon added that a new Artists Equity deal he and Affleck reached with Netflix on the Joe Carnahan film RIP reflects how things are adapting in the marketplace. Damon said that project will bonus out financially based on the performance on the streaming platform.
“Everyone’s paying attention to all of it, but it feels like it’s all in this state of disruption right now,” Damon said.
To Casey Affleck, the fact that a film like The Instigators is so readily available on streaming for a global audience is in and of itself a victory.
“That’s great,” he said of the film’s wide net of an audience. “I mean, I love going to the movies. I love going and seeing a movie with other people. It’s really fun. … But I also really love that people around the world are going to get access to movies that they just [wouldn’t have had originally]. That never would’ve happened. You couldn’t be in movie theaters all around the world like that. You just couldn’t reach them. There are a lot of people that can’t even get to a movie theater.
“So I’m not going to bemoan the state of things too much. I’m sorry that some of the movie theaters, chains have closed and are struggling. That’s terrible. I’m really glad that there are places like Apple… that don’t have to be making movies, that are. They’re making movies; they’re making them available in a way that also works for them. And that keeps everybody working.”
The Instigators is streaming on Apple TV+ now.
Since hearing Matt Damon talk about how the "death of the DVD" has impacted making certain types of films in Hollywood on Hot Ones, I've wondered if the rise of premium video on demand has countered some of that lost revenue.
The Super Bowl 58 commercial conversion continued throughout the past week as the 2024 USA TODAY Ad Meter Replay Ratings kicked off on Monday. Immediately following the Big Game between the Chiefs and 49ers, our Ad Meter panel handed the 36th annual …
The Super Bowl 58 commercial conversion continued throughout the past week as the 2024 USA TODAY Ad Meter Replay Ratings kicked off on Monday.
Immediately following the Big Game between the Chiefs and 49ers, our Ad Meter panel handed the 36th annual Ad Meter title to State Farm’s “Like a Good Neighbaaa.” The commercial starred Arnold Schwarzenegger with an appearance by Danny DeVito. That advert pulled in a 6.68 overall score.
But now for the finale of another promising Ad Meter year.
Ad Meter’s Replay Review has four categories: Most Comical, Most Inspirational/Heartwarming, Best Cameo, and Rookie of the Year.
With those votes now in, let’s have a drumroll please…
Did we really think Jimmy Kimmel would go the whole Oscars without making fun of Matt Damon?
We really didn’t think Jimmy Kimmel would go the entire Academy Awards without getting in a dig at Matt Damon, did we?
Right as the show was ending, it looked like Kimmel wouldn’t keep his ongoing fake feud with Damon alive in his fourth Oscar hosting stint.
In the amended words of Lee Corso, not so fast, my frenemy!
A brief gag closed the show right before the credits of Messi the dog from Anatomy of a Fall pretending to hoist his leg up to pee on Damon’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as Kimmel got in his annual roast.
The Academy Awards always have great speeches. Here are 15 of our favorites.
The Academy Awards have always been a great place for great speeches.
Over the years, we’ve seen incredible outpourings of gratitude mixed in with unforgettable exclamations of jubilee. Heck, we’ve even seen someone do push-ups.
We’ve tallied 15 of our favorite speeches from over the years, ranging from ones by actors like Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Gwyneth Paltrow, Denzel Washington and Robin Williams.
While this list is by no means exhaustive, it’s a reflection of what makes for a great Oscars speech and some admiration for some of our favorite Academy Award moments.
Sit back, relax and get those Academy Awards memories going.
While he won’t necessarily get a Lombardi, Ben Affleck might’ve already won Super Bowl 58.
In what’s one of the best Super Bowl advertisements in ages, Affleck reunited with Dunkin’ Donuts for a hysterical commercial in which he makes a boy band called the DunKings.
The advertisement features Affleck’s wife Jennifer Lopez looking very unamused by the DunKings, a music act that features Affleck, Tom Brady and a very apologetic Matt Damon.
While we’re not at all expecting a DunKings album anytime soon, you can get the DunKings Iced Coffee at Dunkin starting on Monday morning.
This ad really has everything, and you have to watch it.
Affleck has been one of Dunkin’ Donuts best spokespeople as of late, and this Super Bowl 58 commercial might be his best collaboration with the doughnut brand yet.
Everyone loved this commercial and a few really good jokes emerged.
Ben Affleck’s Air is the next great American sports movie.
One of the more classic American sensibilities is our persistent stubbornness to give up on something when we believe in it.
You can track it all the way back to the Revolutionary War to find a bunch of scrappy, powdered-wig wearing forefathers who were so against paying those ridiculous taxes on their goods that they’d go to battle for freedom.
For all of the flaws that engulf the idea of “American exceptionalism,” we are an exceptionally headstrong people when we want something.
Ben Affleck’s Air walks the fine line in extolling these virtues. On one hand, there is a direct thrill in watching Affleck’s dramatization of how once-underdog shoe company Nike usurped the basketball competition giants of Adidas and Converse to land Michael Jordan’s sponsorship.
Affleck’s as gifted behind the camera as he is in front of it, and he knows how to ring from history a snappy, monologue-filled headrush of racing against the clock and defying the odds on the sheer power of belief and savvy corporate maneuvering.
You get all the archetypes of the underdog story: the guy we root for who powers himself on good-faith tenets (Matt Damon’s Sonny Vaccaro), the benevolent authority figure who pushes our protagonist when necessary (Affleck’s Phil Knight), the supporting players who fuel our protagonist’s efforts (Jason Bateman’s Rob Strasser, Chris Tucker’s Howard White, Matthew Maher’s Peter Moore) and the moral center who makes everything happen (Viola Davis’ Deloris Jordan).
The villain is more of an obelisk, a system that seeks to use sponsorship to build up product rather than the other way around. Vaccaro’s genius in seeing Michael Jordan’s potential was understanding that he was the marquee event, not the sneaker he was sporting. As a couple of our main players note throughout the film, it’s not about the shoe as much as the person who was wearing it.
As your sneaker closet may spoil for you, Nike succeeded in courting Jordan against the firm pushes of Adidas and Converse. The Air Jordan absolutely changed the basketball shoe world. The deal revolutionized the way we market products around athletes and forever altered the means of compensation on sponsorship deals to build up the individual as much as the company. In a little boardroom in Oregon, sports shifted for good.
Affleck’s film successfully rallies around the underdog narrative with the same gleeful disruption of sports movies like Jerry Maguire and Moneyball. Those pillars of sporting films – the former fictional, the latter inspired by real life – dealt directly with merry marauders who pushed against the old guard of athletics and found a new way forward.
Air is an outstanding example of how to execute that story with enough gravitas to get you cheering in your seat when a billion-dollar company is able to schedule a meeting with an NBA player for a marketing pitch.
It’s a hair-raising, chest-pumping sprint to the finish, built on inspirational platitudes and fiercely written exchanges about ideals. Alex Convery’s script would make Aaron Sorkin proud, and its entertainingly clinical dismantling of power structures would have Steven Soderbergh foaming at the mouth.
Damon is the perfect fixture point, with he and Affleck’s scenes together channeling that uncanny chemistry that they’ll always have. They’re the closest thing we have to a Jack Lemmon/Walter Matthau partnership. Tucker, Bateman and Maher, all tremendous, further humanize Vaccaro’s quest, and Davis turns in one of her better performances as the Jordan family’s steely, empathetic matriarch who is hellbent on making sure her son’s generational potential is realized on the most just path.
Throw in Affleck’s quirky take on Knight and Chris Messina’s smarmy, full-throated imagining of sports superagent David Falk, and you’ve got one of the finest ensembles we’ve had in ages. This film can’t work without its cast.
Affleck’s direction is as precise and energetic as it was with Argo, another story about determined Americans racing against the clock to defy the odds. However, his film isn’t shallow enough to not address the Nike-wearing elephant in the room.
Indeed, while there is clear inspiration to the Jordan/Nike story, there is also the finicky trouble with hyping up a billion-dollar corporation’s quest to make a crap ton of more money. The means of production so often leaves behind the worker who makes it possible, and Air savvily takes the Air Jordan deal and adds vital context in the third act about the thankless system that largely governs our economic groundswells.
The film shows that Deloris Jordan wanted her son to get a cut of the Air Jordan shoe sales because she knew Michael was going to be a megastar, and she didn’t want him to get lost in the tidal wave of unpredictable American commerce. Jordan is one of the richest athletes to ever play because of the terms of the Nike shoe deal, and many athletes have benefitted from that over time.
Affleck’s film tries to show the importance of what the Air Jordan deal gave athletes all while making the quest to secure that sponsorship as exciting as overtime in a Game 7 of an NBA Finals. The film is too smart to ignore the corporate greed and risky optimism that can fuel our biggest corporate achievements, but it’s also nuanced enough to celebrate the marriage of good-faith economics and pure belief.
The Air Jordan deal left plenty of winners, and it’s easy to root for the victory. You have to remember that this is a story told through Hollywood’s purview, one that can’t fully unpack the complexities of Nike and its business dealings. However, Air can unpack the brazen foundation that builds all of our competitive successes, and Affleck’s film does so masterfully. It’s a film that inspires you to fly all while reminding you what it takes to have wings.
The movie tells the story of Knight and the partnership between Michael Jordan and Nike’s basketball division, which eventually led to the creation of the Air Jordan brand.
Ben Affleck, who directs the film, stars as Nike co-founder and former chairman Phil Knight.
Affleck stars alongside Matt Damon (as Sonny Vaccaro), Viola Davis (as Deloris Jordan), Julius Tennon (as James Jordan), Chris Tucker (as Howard White), Jason Bateman (as Rob Strasser), Matthew Maher (as Peter Moore), Chris Messina (as David Falk), and Marlon Wayans (as George Raveling).
This movie will have its theatrical release in the United States on April 5. Until then, you can watch the trailer to get excited and build anticipation for AIR.
You can also check out our side-by-side comparisons of the actors and all of their real-life counterparts:
The best takes and the sharpest bets on all the hoops storylines you need to know. Sign up for our Layup Lines newsletter, hitting your inbox on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
In fact, the Nike biographical sports drama currently has a 100 percent approval rating on the film review website Rotten Tomatoes. That specifically means that all seventeen reviewers thus far have rated this movie favorably.
AIR will have its theatrical release in the United States on April 5. But until then, you can watch the trailer to get excited and build anticipation for this movie.
Ben Affleck, who directs the film, also stars as Nike co-founder and former chairman Phil Knight.
The movie tells the story of Knight and the partnership between Michael Jordan and Nike’s basketball division, which eventually led to the creation of the Air Jordan brand.
