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 fаme; I only play because I wаnted 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 full-length documentary, which will be available on February 19, tells the tale of Giannis’s family starting with his parents, Charles and Veronica Antetokounmpo, who left Nigeria in 1991 to bring their family to Greece in quest of a better life.
Giannis, who was born in Athens on December 6, 1994, would make a decision along these lines when he declared his candidacy for the 2013 NBA draft. He joined the Milwaukee Bucks on July 30, 2013, and he has played for the team his whole professional career, helping them win 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 unexpecteԀ deаth 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 deаth 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 drаmа 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.
