Netflix plans to turn Phil Knight’s ‘Shoe Dog’ into a movie

[NelsonG]

Netflix has optioned Shoe Dog, the bestselling memoir by Nike co-founder and former CEO Phil Knight.

While the streaming service has had its most high-profile success with original shows like Orange is the New Black and Stranger Things, it sounds like it’s planning to turn Shoe Dog into a film. Knight and Frank Marshall will produce, while Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (the true-life-focused writing team behind Ed Wood, Man on the Moon and The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story) pen the screenplay.

Netflix’s announcement says Marshall and Knight first met on the set of Back to the Future, where Marshall was one of the executive producers.

“Ever since our collaboration on BTTF and being a runner myself, I’ve always been fascinated by Phil’s story and how the company came to be,” Marshall said in a statement. “It’s an amazing tale about what the path to success really looks like, with its mistakes, struggles, sacrifice and even luck. It’s about how a company can grow with the right people, dedication, a belief in the power of sport and a shared mission to build a brand that would change everything.”

This isn’t the first time Netflix has tried to tell business stories drawn from the real world. It adapted Sophia Amoruso’s Girlboss into a series last year, then canceled the show after one season.

Shoe Dog was published in 2016. Bill Gates wrote that in contrast to most books about entrepreneurship, Knight’s memoir is “a refreshingly honest reminder of what the path to business success really looks like.” It remains on the New York Times besteller list more than two years later.

It’s also worth noting that Knight also has a connection to the film world through his ownership of the Laika, the stop motion animation studio behind Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings — the latter film was directed by Laika CEO (and Knight’s son) Travis Knight.

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