{"id":156075,"date":"2025-08-23T14:20:35","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T18:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=156075"},"modified":"2025-08-23T15:03:59","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T19:03:59","slug":"kobe-bryant-movie-lakers-major-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/08\/23\/kobe-bryant-movie-lakers-major-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Kobe Bryant Biopic: Movie on Lakers Star Gets Major Development"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tributes to late Lakers legend <\/span>Kobe Bryant<\/span><\/a> are pouring in for his 47th birthday. But new reports say part of the Mamba\u2019s story could eventually come to the big screen.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kobe Bryant Biopic: Movie on Lakers Star Gets Major Development<\/b><\/h2>\n

Warner Bros. Acquires Spec Script for Kobe-Centered Project<\/b><\/h3>\n

Warner Bros. Pictures has picked up a spec script for a film about Kobe\u2019s draft experience, <\/span>according to Variety<\/span><\/a>. Tentatively titled \u201cWith the 8th Pick?,\u201d the storyline would follow Bryant\u2019s journey toward the 1996 NBA Draft, when the Lakers acquired him from the Hornets, who took him 13th overall. The spec script<\/a>\u2014a script written without executive or studio backing\u2014was created by Alex Sohn and Gavin Johannsen.<\/span><\/p>\n

Variety\u2019s Matt Donnelly and J. Kim Murphy added:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOther insiders familiar with the script described the film as \u2018Moneyball\u2019 meets \u2018Air,\u2019 Ben Affleck and Matt Damon\u2019s recent feature detailing Nike\u2019s courtship of a rookie-year Michael Jordan.<\/span><\/p>\n

Warner Bros. had no comment when asked about the project.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Entertainment journalist Jeff Sneider <\/span>first broke the news<\/span><\/a> and added that Tom Brady\u2019s production company, <\/span>Religion of Sports<\/span><\/a>, would be partners in the project along with the producers of \u201cKING RICHARD,\u201d the biopic on the father of tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams. Religion of Sports was also behind a Bryant-related documentary,<\/span> \u201cKobe Bryant\u2019s Muse,\u201d<\/span><\/a> which offered a deep-dive into his career until 2014 and aired on Showtime. Other <\/span>projects<\/span><\/a> of theirs include Netflix and ESPN+ shows around Brady, Serena Williams, Simone Biles and Connor McGregor.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sources told Variety, however, that \u201cany third-party involvement was way premature.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Mar
Mar 17, 2025; Los Angeles, California, USA; The Los Angeles Lakers logo on the Crypto.com Arena video board. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How New Jersey Factors into Kobe\u2019s Journey<\/b><\/h4>\n

Though the Hornets and Lakers play key roles in Bryant\u2019s story, why include No. 8?<\/span><\/p>\n

Before Bryant put on a Hornets hat and a Laker uniform, he nearly became a New Jersey Net. Then Nets GM John Nash wanted to draft Kobe with the eighth overall pick, but <\/span>passed under external pressure<\/span><\/a> to take Villanova star <\/span>Kerry Kittles<\/span><\/a>. While Bryant\u2019s career was legendary in its own right, Kittles was certainly no slouch. The 6\u20195\u201d shooting guard made the 1997 All-Rookie team and finished <\/span>fifth<\/span><\/a> in Rookie of the Year voting. Over the course of his nine-year career (excluding a 2000-01 season lost due to injury), Kittles averaged 14.1 points, 3.9 rebounds and 2.6 assists. He did end up finishing his career in LA, spending the 2004-05 campaign with the Clippers.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Everybody knows I was talked out of that,” former Nets head coach John <\/span>Calipari <\/span>told<\/span><\/a> ESPN\u2019s Ian O’Connor in 2011<\/span>. “But let me say this, the opportunity to coach Kerry Kittles, I wouldn’t give up for anything. I love Kerry Kittles, and I said at the time he’ll be better than Kobe these first couple of years, but in five years Kobe’s going to be off the charts.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Nearly 30 years since the 1996 NBA Draft, the Nets\u2019 decision remains one of the league\u2019s greatest \u201cwhat-ifs,\u201d and it could get its own spotlight if this film comes to fruition.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Lily Smith\/The Register \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tributes to late Lakers legend Kobe Bryant are pouring in for his 47th birthday. But new reports say part of the Mamba\u2019s story could eventually come to the big screen. Kobe Bryant Biopic: Movie on Lakers Star Gets Major Development Warner Bros. Acquires Spec Script for Kobe-Centered Project Warner Bros. Pictures has picked up a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4265,"featured_media":156087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,6,7,2,26,62,3],"tags":[887,551],"class_list":["post-156075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nets","category-hornets","category-featured","category-lakers","category-nba","category-news","tag-john-calipari","tag-kobe-bryant"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156075"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156091,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156075\/revisions\/156091"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}