Jon Weinbach will direct this documentary, which is releasing globally on Netflix on Oct. 7.
August 19, 2022 (https://awfulannouncing.com) — The lineup of sports documentaries on Netflix continues to grow. Beyond the Untold and Bad Sport series, they’ve done all-access docuseries on F1, the PGA Tour, tennis, Last Chance U (football and basketball), and more. And now, they’re teaming up with the International Olympic Committee, The Olympic Channel, Mandalay Sports Media, and more for a Jon Weinbach-directed documentary on the 2008 U.S. men’s basketball Olympic team, otherwise known as the “Redeem Team” (which is the title of this doc).
The documentary will release globally on Netflix on Oct. 7, and LeBron James and Dwyane Wade (key players on that team) will be executive producers on it. Here’s more from a release:
· Logline: Using unprecedented Olympic footage and behind-the-scenes material, The Redeem Team tells the story of the US Olympic Men’s Basketball Team’s quest for gold at the Olympic Games Beijing 2008 following the previous team’s shocking performance four years earlier in Athens. The documentary offers a fascinating portrait of team building and features insightful interviews with athletes and coaches from Dwyane Wade and LeBron James to Mike “Coach K” Krzyzewski, who reflect on how The Redeem Team set a new standard for American basketball. The documentary film releases globally on Netflix on October 7th.
· The Redeem Team is an Olympic Channel, Kennedy/Marshall Company & Mandalay Sports Media production in association with 59th and Prairie Entertainment, UNINTERRUPTED, NBA Entertainment & USA Basketball.
· This is Netflix’s first collaboration with the Olympic Channel, which is the media studio owned and operated by the IOC, and also marks the Olympic Channel’s first time producing a film exclusively for a global streaming service. They have opened up their never-before-seen archives for this documentary, including basketball footage from the past 70 years of Olympic history.
· Directed by Jon Weinbach. A decorated producer, filmmaker, and writer, Jon Weinbach is the President of Skydance Sports, a division of Skydance Media. He was formerly the Executive Producer and Executive Vice-President of Mandalay Sports Media, a content venture founded in 2012 by Peter Guber and Mike Tollin. His portfolio at MSM included producing The Last Dance, executive producing The Comedy Store, and executive producing nine documentary films for the International Olympic Committee’s OTT platform, the Olympic Channel. Prior to joining Mandalay, Jon produced and wrote Producers Guild of America Award-nominated The Other Dream Team, and was also a staff reporter at the Wall Street Journal.
Redeem Team will be produced by Greg Groggel & Diego Hurtado De Mendoza, and executive produced by Frank Marshall, Mike Tollin, Weinbach, Dwyane Wade, Mark Parkman, Mary Byrne and Yiannis Exarchos with LeBron James, Maverick Carter, Jamal Henderson and Philip Byron of Uninterrupted. Here are some quotes on it from director Weinbach:
It’s interesting to see James and Wade both as executive producers here. Both of them have already taken notable dives into the media world, with James part-owning and helping to run Uninterrupted and SpringHill Entertainment (and working on basketball-based drama series like Netflix’s Rez Ball and Disney+’s The Crossover) and Wade working for Turner Sports, hosting series for Bleacher Report, contributing to a wide range of TNT/NBA TV content, and putting out a documentary on his life. And they were both key figures on this team, and this team was important for both of them, with their time together here previously cited as a factor in James’ 2009 “The Decision” to leave Cleveland and join Wade in Miami. So this will be a notable documentary to watch.
