“I'm gonna be honest with you bro, I just almost fell on my a** in this hotel room,” said Black Panther director Ryan Coogler with a laugh.
This comment was in reference to when I asked Coogler if his basketball shot improved upon watching Stephen Curry footage during the production of the new documentary, Stephen Curry: Underrated. It was how I opened our conversation, and he immediately seemed to have a good time from this point forward.
Curry is widely regarded as the greatest shooter in the history of the NBA — but you probably already knew that. The new documentary about the legendary point guard from A24 and Apple TV+ is coming out soon, and I'm sure that Coogler, who produced Underrated, had to watch hours of footage of tape of the legendary Golden State Warrior.
He continued, “I'm so far away from being an athlete, I think my basketball shot probably got worse [working] on this movie.”
But it's not age that is the driving force behind Coogler's declining basketball shot. He chalked it up to his confidence being “crushed” every time he sees Steph Curry shoot.
Ryan Coogler, 38, was a collegiate athlete himself. At Sacramento State, he played wide receiver for their football team. He's now an Oscar-nominated director who has worked on the Creed and Black Panther franchises alike and has also produced films including Judas and the Black Messiah. While he didn't direct Creed II or III, he remained a producer on both films and received a story credit for the threequel. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was a highly successful sequel to the award-winning first film, and a third film feels inevitable once the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes are settled.
Stephen Curry: Underrated will be released in select theaters and streaming on Apple TV+ on July 21.
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