The feature-length documentary chronicling the Nigerian Milwaukee Bucks player from Athens, Greece, to NBA champion premieres on Prime Video Feb. 19.
“I don’t play basketball for the money, the fame; I only play because I wanted to change my family’s life,” Giannis Antetokounmpo says in the trailer for his upcoming documentary, Giannis: The Marvelous Journey, released by Prime Video on Wednesday.
The feature-length doc, set for release on Feb. 19, details Giannis’s family’s story beginning with his parents, Charles and Veronica Antetokounmpo, who immigrated to Greece from Nigeria in search of a better life for their family in 1991.
Giannis, born in Athens, on Dec. 6, 1994, would make a similar choice when he officially made himself eligible for the 2013 NBA draft. On July 30, 2013, he signed his rookie contract with the Milwaukee Bucks, where he’s played for throughout his entire professional career, leading the team to their first NBA championship since 1971 in 2021.
The Marvelous Journey goes beyond the power forward’s professional highlight reel, though, painting a picture of an athlete with unfathomable resilience, from rising above racism growing up as an African immigrant in Greece to bringing his family to America in 2014, and coping with the unexpected death of his father three years later in 2017.
“I don’t want to play no more,” Giannis says of his feelings at the time of his father’s death in the trailer. “I don’t want to play no more.”
In addition to insights from the two-time consecutive NBA Most Valuable Player affectionately known as “the Greek Freak,” the documentary features Giannis’s mother, Veronica, and his brothers Thanasis, Kostas,and Alex Antetokounmpo, along with his fiancée Mariah Riddlesprigger.
The movie also has appearances by other NBA players Jason Kidd, Khris Middleton, Jrue Holiday, Vin Baker, Kenny Smith, and Ernie Johnson.
The Hollywood version of Giannis’ story has been told before, as seen by previous projects. Based on the real-life experiences of the MVP and his brothers Thanasis and Kostas, Disney published the biographical sports drama Rise in 2022.
Kristen Lappas, an Emmy winner, is the director and producer of Giannis: The Marvelous Journey. Along with Connor Schell and Hannah Beir, executive producers Aaron Cohen, Libby Geist, Nick Monroe, and Giorgos Panou are involved with the project.
