Sweetwater

Sweetwater (2023)

The man who changed the game.

In 1990 Chicago, a taxi driver recounts to his passenger, a sportswriter, his life story. He reveals himself to be Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton, one of the first African Americans to play in the NBA.

Date of release
2023-04-14
TMDB
6.9 / 10 (32)
Runtime
1h 59m
Genres
Drama
Director
Martin Guigui

Casting

Interesting facts

Sweetwater is a 2023 American biographical sports film about Nat Clifton, the first African-American to sign a contract with the National Basketball Association (NBA). Written and directed by Martin Guigui, it stars Everett Osborne as Clifton, with Cary Elwes, Jeremy Piven, Richard Dreyfuss, and Kevin Pollak in supporting roles.

Production

In December 2006, it was reported that Martin Guigui had been working on a biopic project about the career of Nat Clifton for the last ten years. The project by Sunset Pictures was reported by Variety to begin production in April 2007 with Guigui directing from a screenplay he wrote. Henry Simmons was attached to play Nat Clifton and Richard Dreyfuss to portray Abe Saperstein, the owner and founder of the Harlem Globetrotters.

By July 2014, some cast members had been replaced. Wood Harris replaced Simmons as Nat Clifton, Nathan Lane would play Saperstein and James Caan as Ned Irish. Brian Dennehy, Patrick Warburton and Ludacris were all attached to star in undisclosed roles. The production budget was reported to be $10 million and filming was expected to begin in New York in late 2014.

Production was subsequently completed by October 2022, with Pollak as Saperstein, Dreyfuss as Maurice Podoloff, Cary Elwes as Irish, Jeremy Piven as Joe Lapchick. Gary Clark Jr and Bobby Portis make cameos. Guigui and Jeff Cardoni composed the film's score.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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