Jamie Foxx will star in Netflix’s forthcoming sports drama, Fight For ’84. The Academy Award-winning actor will play a boxing coach hired to put together an Olympic boxing team for the U.S. after a plane crash in 1980 claimed the lives of several amateur boxes and coaches.
Foxx is no stranger to boxing films. Previously, he portrayed Drew Bundini Brown in the Will Smith-led Muhammad Ali biopic. Foxx’s performance won Best Supporting Actor at the 2002 Black Reel Awards. He is also tied to a project documenting the life, legacy, and career of legendary heavyweight champion Mike Tyson.
Fight For ’84 is inspired by the events of March 14, 1980. Headed to an event in Warsaw, Poland, 14 American fighters and eight members of the U.S. Boxing staff boarded LOT Polish Airlines Flight 007 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, New York. As the plane neared Warsaw-Okecie Airport, engine trouble derailed a routine landing and led to a fatal crash that claimed the lives of 77 passengers, including 22 fighters and staffers representing U.S. boxing.
In the aftermath, U.S. boxing assembled arguably its best team ever, winning a record-high nine gold medals. Five members of the Olympic team went on to win world championships, including Pernell Whittaker and Meldrick Taylor. Heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield and lightweight champion Virgil Hill also won medals at the Olympics in 1984.
