Hulu
In the weeks leading up to the premiere of Mike, the new Hulu limited series based upon Mike Tyson’s life, the heavyweight boxing champion took to Instagram to express his displeasure. “They stole my life story and didn’t pay me,” he alleges in his post. Referring to Hulu as the “streaming version of the slave master,” the post captured more of Iron Mike’s frustrations via text. “Don’t let Hulu fool you,” he writes. “To Hulu executives, I’m just a n****r they can sell on the auction block.”
It’s clear why he’s speaking out against this adaptation of his life story. In 2014, Tyson announced plans to collaborate on a biopic with Academy Award-winner Jamie Foxx, whom he had befriended in the late 1980s and was a bystander to the brawler’s decline from peak global celebrity; initially, Wolf of Wall Street screenwriter Terence Winter was attached to the project, with Martin Scorsese set to direct. Foxx shared details intermittently in the years that followed, along with photos of his physical transformation for the project.
But it wasn’t until last year that reports finally confirmed that a limited series called Tyson, starring Foxx, directed by Antoine Fuqua, and executive produced by Tyson and Scorsese, was in active development. The momentum around Mike, starring Trevante Rhodes as Tyson at his peak, infringes upon the excitement Tyson and Foxx have worked to build around his latest redemption project.