Kyrie Irving is headed to Georgia to film his new movie Uncle Drew.
According to Explore Georgia, Uncle Drew to film in Georgia in the next few weeks.
Variety reports that Temple Hill Entertainment acquired the movie rights to Kyrie Irving’s Uncle Drew Pepsi commercials. The writer behind Skiptrace, Jay Longino will write the script with Kyrie Irving attached to reprise the role of Drew.
The original Pepsi Max commercials showed Irving, in full makeup, playing a 70-plus-year-old man, Drew, who would show up to pickup basketball games and school kids half his age, while also reminiscing about how the game used to be played. Temple Hill’s Marty Bowen, Wyck Godfrey, and John Fischer will produce the film, described as a love letter to basketball, Variety reports.
The movie is described as “Blues Brothers” in the pickup basketball world, Longino’s pitch shows Drew and his old squad on the legendary Rucker Park basketball court in Harlem. Years later Drew is talked into returning to the courts to compete in a tournament and goes on a road trip to round the old squad up to play.
“Kyrie and the team of people behind them — guys like Marc Gilbar and Lou Arbetter at Pepsi — did an incredible job of creating a character and a world that people responded to almost instantaneously,” Longino told Variety. “There’s an old Nike commercial that talks about how many shots Michael Jordan missed in his career. He’s obviously remembered for all of the game-winners he made but the reality is he missed 26 of them. That commercial has always stuck with me and its theme is certainly present throughout the script.”
Longino added that he worked with Irving on how to develop the movie. “We’ve sat down together twice in the last few months. He knows the character inside and out, and just being around him when he has all the makeup on has been really informative for me,” Longino said. “And he’ll definitely be chiming in on what he thinks is working in the script and what isn’t.”
