Uncle Drew is coming to the big screen. Cleveland Cavaliers guard Kyrie Irving will star in a movie that will turn his Pepsi commercial character into a full-length feature film.
According to Variety, Temple Hill Entertainment has acquired the feature film rights to the “Uncle Drew” Pepsi commercials. “Skiptrace” writer Jay Longino is set to write the script and Irving will continue to play the role of Drew.
Temple Hill’s Marty Bowen, Wyck Godfrey, and John Fischer will produce the film, described as a love letter to basketball. The original Pepsi Max advertisements showed Irving, in full make-up, playing a 70-plus-year-old man, Drew, who would show up to pick-up basketball games and school kids half his age, while also reminiscing about how the game used to be played.
Basketball stars including Kevin Love, Ray Allen, Nate Robinson and Maya Moore have appeared in the Uncle Drew commercials. Longino wants to continue that, saying the goal is to work a bevy of NBA stars into the movie.
“I can’t name names just yet but if you’re a fan of the NBA, both its past and its present, you should leave with a pretty big smile on your face,” Longino said.
Longino said he took inspiration from the commercials and began building a story that he hoped would make people excited, but also hopefully “inspire them to not let things like their age, or their size, or their past failures limit what they’re capable of accomplishing.”
