Jonathan Majors is in early talks to play Dennis Rodman in the upcoming Lionsgate movie “48 Hours in Vegas” about the basketball star’s infamous trip during the 1998 NBA finals.
News broke last August that the vacation that would become sports legend was set to be adapted into a film from Lionsgate and Lord Miller. “48 Hours in Vegas” will chronicle the journey after Rodman, then a star player for the Chicago Bulls, asked his coach Phil Jackson if he could take a 48-hour trip to Las Vegas in the middle of the 1998 NBA Finals against the Utah Jazz.
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While Rodman and his Bulls superstar teammate Michael Jordan recently revisited these events in the ESPN docuseries “The Last Dance,” the new movie is said to paint its own picture of the “madcap adventure” that ensued as Rodman and a skittish assistant GM developed a surprising new friendship.
Phil Lord, Chris Miller and Aditya Sood will produce for Lord Miller, and Ari Lubet, Will Allegra and Rodman will executive produce. Jordan VanDina (Hulu’s “The Binge”) will write the screenplay.
News of Majors’ interest in the project comes amid a busy stretch for the Emmy-nominated actor, with the Korean War-set pic “Devotion” — where he portrays the trailblazing Navy pilot Jesse Brown — set to debut in November. His highly-anticipated arrival as Kang the Conqueror in Marvel’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” is also out in February, followed by “Creed III” in March. The actor most recently wrapped production on “Magazine Dreams,” which he executive produced under his Tall Street Productions, where he plays an amateur bodybuilder who struggles to find human connection. He’ll next head into production on “The Man in My Basement,” executive producing the film adaptation of the Walter Mosley novel and starring opposite Willem Dafoe.
Majors is repped by WME, Entertainment 360, Jackoway Austen. Deadline was first to report news of Majors’ involvement.
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