Word: mann
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...After a management turnover at Sony, several more rewrites were assigned while many directors, including Barry Sonnenfeld, Curtis Hanson and Spike Lee, circled the movie. Mann ultimately took the job after meeting with the Alis. "The one thing they feared was a sentimentalization," says Mann, "a teary Hallmark- greeting version of Muhammad Ali...What they didn't want is what I didn't want." When asked why he didn't choose a black director, Ali answers, "The people that made the movie, I know they're qualified. I don't care what color they are." His wife adds that "Muhammad...
...Mann got Smith on board by promising to guide him through the physical, emotional and spiritual training required. "Before that point, I couldn't see how I would become Muhammad Ali," says Smith. Mann kept Ali's story at manageable length by focusing only on the civil rights and Vietnam years, when Ali "occupied his most profound importance." Mann's final screenplay, written with Eric Roth, begins in 1964, when the young Cassius Clay beats Sonny Liston out of the world heavyweight championship. Fresh off his victory, he publicly and unapologetically announces his devotion to the Nation of Islam...
...Almost half an hour of the movie takes place in boxing rings. Mann, a famous perfectionist, has meticulously restaged the actual fights, and Smith goes toe to toe with real fighters. Smith says the knockdown of Foreman (boxer Charles Shufford) was the most "grueling" sequence: "We did it over five days. Michael wanted everything, the angle of the bend in my wrist and the angle of my ankle and toe, to be perfect...
...Mann also made sure the supporting cast did its homework. Angelo Dundee, Ali's former trainer, was often on the set with Ron Silver, who plays him in the movie. Actor Jeffrey Wright closely observed Bingham, who was on hand to take pictures and help safeguard historical accuracy. Jamie Foxx studied tapes of Ali's late, drug-addled corner man Drew (Bundini) Brown. Jon Voight, who last summer hid himself under layers of prosthetics as Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Pearl Harbor, again endured hours each day in the makeup chair, this time disguising himself as Howard Cosell. The witty verbal...
...Moviegoers may want to do a little research themselves before seeing the film. "Michael Mann doesn't subscribe to the theory that the audience is not smart," says Smith. "People appreciate it when you're not spelling everything out." Still, it helps to know a few facts about Ali's initiation into the Nation of Islam and his complicated relationship with Malcolm X (Mario Van Peebles), which is already unfolding when the movie begins. Says Mann: "I wanted to insert you into the stream of this man's life, orient you without doing it in a blatant way with exposition...