Ben Affleck screened the world premiere of his new movie Air at South by Southwest Movie & TV Pageant in Austin on Saturday and shortly made it clear how a lot he needed his Amazon Studios challenge to succeed.

“Tonight is a very powerful evening of my skilled life,” Affleck declared from the stage, amid making some self-deprecating references to earlier initiatives which weren’t extensively widespread. “That is an optimistic, hopeful film about individuals. So I can’t cover behind being an auteur – [as if to say] ‘you don’t want to grasp my film.’ I actually hope you prefer it … So no strain, nevertheless it’s all on you.”

Affleck directed and co-stars in Air, a biographical drama chronicling Nike’s revolutionary creation of the Air Jordan shoeline. Judging by the premiere viewers’s response, Affleck needn’t be frightened about its reception – the movie and its forged filled with scene stealers acquired a rapturous ovation. Air stars Matt Damon because the Nike government who signed Michael Jordan to his first sneaker deal. Affleck performs Nike CEO Phil Knight, and the movie additionally stars Viola Davis, Jason Bateman, Marlon Wayans, Chris Tucker and Chris Messina.

Damon known as his position – and reunion together with his “finest pal” and longtime collaborator Affleck – “the best job I’ve ever had.”

“I confirmed up daily and had five-to-seven [script] pages to do reverse actors like this, it was ridiculous,” Damon mentioned. “I’ve by no means had extra enjoyable. Ben and I – from from the second we learn [Alex Convery’s] script to the final minimize we made within the edit – it was simply absolute pleasure.”

Davis – who Affleck known as “the most effective actor I’ve ever seen” – spoke about what enjoying Jordan’s protecting, business-savvy mom Deloris meant to her. “Deloris and my mother have been born in a technology of individuals whose desires have been their children. It’s the peak of Jim Crow. It’s the peak of Black individuals being advised that their desires didn’t matter. To date her to have that large imaginative and prescient for her son, and to imagine it wholeheartedly, is kind of miraculous. It was an honor to play Deloris.”

Bateman appeared shocked by the gang’s response to the movie, “I couldn’t imagine the quantity of screaming and the yelling [during the screening],” he mentioned. “What Ben and Matt have been in a position to do with this story … it’s an American enterprise story they usually made a rock present out of it. They have been by some means in a position to improve what Michael Jordan means to all of us – which was already the zenith of greatness and pleasure. I’ll by no means consider Michael Jordan or Air Jordans the identical method once more due to what Ben was in a position to do with this movie, and create that form of feeling that all of us simply had.”

In a moderately daring inventive alternative, Jordan himself isn’t straight proven within the movie, which Affleck defined was an effort to keep away from having an actor impersonate a larger-than-life residing legend who audiences have been already so accustomed to. “There is no such thing as a method I used to be ever going to ask an viewers to imagine that anyone else was Michael Jordan,” he mentioned. “Which was out of my very own self curiosity, frankly, as a result of I knew it might destroy the film.” He additionally added, “This isn’t a documentary. This isn’t meant to be absolutely the excellent historical past of who did what and mentioned what … all of the errors within the film are mine.”

Affleck mentioned he confirmed the movie to the actual Phil Knight, “and midway by I noticed which may have been a huge mistake” given how the movie considerably satirizes the Nike co-founder. “However individuals wish to make enjoyable of the boss, that’s a part of office tradition,” he mentioned. “I’ve been identified to seem in an occasional meme.”

That mentioned, he mentioned he prevented contact with Nike and its executives through the film’s growth and manufacturing. “I didn’t need to have any communication or contact or settle for something from Nike as a result of I didn’t need to be accused of constructing propaganda or a industrial or altering something with a view to curry favor with them.” Nonetheless, it’s tough to think about Nike not being thrilled with the movie’s extraordinarily optimistic presentation of its firm.

In The truestarz‘s present cowl story profile of Affleck, the actor-director talked concerning the movie and the way he approached directing a movie the place company America intersects with Black tradition. “I wouldn’t make a film whose central premise is the appropriation of Black tradition for revenue by white People,” he mentioned. “That’s not my movie to make. I’m telling a narrative that’s a few mixture of issues, and that is one facet of it. I’m not going to omit it as a result of to omit it might additional compound the disrespect. What I’m going to do is discuss to individuals who perceive it higher than I do and who may also help me contextualize it, and that was [costume designer] Charlese [Antoinette Jones], that was Viola. Chris [Tucker], he gave me monologues, he gave me scenes, and it was very natural. And that’s why I used to be like, ‘I would like Chris paid as a author additionally. I need to be very clear that he’s a contributing voice to this film.’”

Air will mark the primary movie from Amazon to be launched in theaters with out a simultaneous launch on Prime Video. The movie hits theaters April 5.