Sony Pictures will release Big George Foreman next week, with the long-awaited biopic featuring an all-star cast including Lawrence Gilliard Jr., Sonja Sohn, and Forest Whitaker. Khris Davis will play the titular boxer, world heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman, in the movie, carrying a big weight not only by portraying an iconic person….but one that is still alive…and can knock you out. Speaking with ComicBook.com in an interview to promote the upcoming film, we asked Davis about this responsibility, in particular the part where the real guy is alive and can hit you real hard.
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“It’s a lot of pressure and, and make no mistake. Mr. Foreman can still knock you out,” Davis said with a big laugh. “It’s a lot of pressure, but, you know, I felt a big responsibility because I felt like this was a story that needed to be told because Mr. Foreman’s story had just been bypassed for so long, you know, and when I read his autobiographies and I looked at all the footage that I could find on Mr Foreman, I thought it was miraculous that this individual had such an incredible and impressive life.”
Even for director George Tillman Jr, being true to the reality of Foreman and his family was an important thing to maintain. That in mind there’s a moment where rather than recreating a specific moment in time, Tillman used actual footage from one of Foreman’s fights, specifically Foreman vs. Holyfield.
“I felt like as a filmmaker, we spent so much time to get those fights right, the early part, even the five fights when George fights five fighters…We spent time with that and I felt like at that time Holyfield, I just felt like let’s take it from Mary Joan’s point of view because it was from her vision, which is real life. She said she dreamed that George was gonna win a heavyweight championship belt. So she’s looking at that and on television, I stayed in her point of view and it didn’t happen, you know what I mean? So those are the things that I felt like was the right time to break away. We never really see that often in most boxing movies, we do some things in the boxing genre that we try to go left when everybody goes straight.”
The full title for the upcoming movie is Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World, and Sony Pictures describes it as follows: “Big George Foreman is based on the remarkable true story of one of the greatest comebacks of all time and the transformational power of second chances. Fueled by an impoverished childhood, Foreman channeled his anger into becoming an Olympic Gold medalist and World Heavyweight Champion, followed by a near-death experience that took him from the boxing ring to the pulpit But when he sees his community struggling spiritually and financially, Foreman returns to the ring and makes history by reclaiming his title, becoming the oldest and most improbable World Heavyweight Boxing Champion ever.”
Big George Foreman premieres on April 28th.
