I would love to see this as a double feature with Muhammad Ali’s We are Kings, it would be a perfect example of what to do and what not to do. Director James Toback is set to create a documentary centering on former heavyweight champion (now joke) Mike Tyson that traces how the fighter self-destructed and let a fortune and his ring legacy slip away.
The pic will be titled Tyson and will use more than 30 hours of recently completed interviews with the ex-champ. The director said his subject pulls no punches in chronicling every aspect of his rise and fall.
Apparently Toback has known Tyson since 1985 and has stayed in close touch during the fighter’s spectacular rise and fall from grace, including his marriage to actresss Robin Givens, his knockout of Buster Douglas, the prison term for a sexual assault conviction and biting off Evander Holyfield’s ear in the ring. The move to bring the story to the big screen is a mutual one between Tyson and Toback and the director tells Variety, “The point is not to polish his image or make a cinematic apology, but rather to get a firsthand look at a very complex and epic story… He was honest about all the things that have highlighted his life, from the bitter divorce, the ear-biting, prison, to his becoming a sex addict. He is self-aware, smart and a totally fractured personality, and he made himself completely vulnerable.”
Tyson said he was “humbled and appreciate that Mr. Toback gave me an opportunity to be involved in this project. I will, to the best of my abilities, give a truthful account of myself.”
