The Jamie Foxx-fronted Mike Tyson biopic has now been in active development for six years, but things are finally starting to come together, with the actor revealing a few more details about what the movie will entail. While speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Foxx divulged some details that may pertain to a large part of the focus of the Tyson story he wishes to tell. After acknowledging that the champion boxer is a controversial figure saying, “Listen, all you can do is tell your story,” Foxx added that part of the movie will depict Tyson’s marriage to his wife, Kiki, “who saved this man from whatever demons inside and outside of his life.”
Tyson married Lakiha “Kiki” Spicer in June 2009 and the couple have been together ever since. They share two children and have worked in tandem on various projects during Tyson’s retirement. Foxx’s recent comments regarding the Mike Tyson movie suggest that the relationship between the two could well be central to the direction of the movie, with the couple’s relationship being integral to the boxer’s later life.
These small details come following Jamie Foxx showing his incredible physical transformation for the role, with the Oscar-winning actor recently taking to social media to demonstrate his fighting fit physique, as well as confirm that the movie is finally moving forward. “It’s a definitive yes,” Foxx said after posting pictures of his Tyson-esque bulk. “Doing biographies is a tough thing. Sometimes it takes 20 years to get them done, but we officially got the real ball rolling.”
Details surrounding the movie are still pretty few and far between, but we do know that Foxx, now 52, will be playing both a younger and older version of the boxing legend, having discussed how he has managed to get his body into the kind of shape that will allow him to best embody Iron Mike. The actor revealed that he’s currently working out “every other day,” with a routine that includes 60 pull-ups, 60 dips, and 100 push-ups. “I ain’t got no calf muscles, so we might have to get some prosthetics for that,” he joked at the time, before adding that, aside from time in the gym, the transformation will involve the implementation of technology, with the actor very confident with the results saying, “I guarantee you, people will run up on me in the street and ask for an autograph and think that I’m Mike.”
Foxx has addressed Tyson’s difficult past before when discussing the biopic, detailing what the actor hopes the movie will achieve in that regard. “We want to show everybody evolves. Everybody comes from a good or bad place and I think when we lay the layers on Mike Tyson in this story, I think everybody from young and old will be able to understand this man’s journey and the way we’ll place it.”
Aside from getting ready to play Tyson, Foxx has several other projects in the pipeline, including his involvement in Pixar’s highly anticipated afterlife-based movie, Soul, the sci-fi thriller Project Power alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and the title role of Spawn in the upcoming R-rated reboot.
The as-yet-untitled Mike Tyson project does not yet have a release date, but with Foxx’s clear dedication to the role, and after such an extended wait, it is now time to start getting excited about it. This news comes to us courtesy of Entertainment Weekly.
