EDITOR’S NOTE:Ali, Michael Mann’s film biography of Muhammad Ali, will be released with much fanfare later this month. It is not, however, the first film biography of the three-time heavyweight champion; in 1977, Ali himself played the title role in the fondly remembered film The Greatest, based on his autobiography. (“A charming curio,” raved Vincent Canby in The New York Times.) This time around, the big shoes will be filled by Will Smith, who, in his previous incarnation as half of the poprap duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, had a hit entitled “I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson.” The screenplay for Ali was written by Stephen J. Rivele & Christopher Wilkinson and Eric Roth & Michael Mann, based on a story by Gregory Allen Howard. Mann’s previous films as a director include The Insider, which he co-wrote with Roth, and Heat. Rivele and Wilkinson’s credits include Nixon. Howard previously wrote Remember the Titans.

The following excerpt begins with Ali’s arrival in Zaire for what would prove to be one of the epic fights of his career: the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” against George Foreman, then the undefeated heavyweight champion. A decade earlier, Ali had himself won the title from Sonny Liston, but it was stripped from him in 1967 after he refused to be inducted into the U.S. Army. As a 32year-old fighter, a Black Muslim, and an outspoken critic of American society, Ali was the favorite of neither the oddsmakers nor what was then known as the Establishment. But for those very reasons he was beloved in many other precincts—including Zaire.

In the film, Foreman will be played by Charles Shufford. Others who will appear in the following scenes include Ron Silver as Angelo Dundee, Ali’s trainer; Jamie Foxx as Drew “Bundini” Brown, his aide-de-camp; Jeffrey Wright as Howard Bingham, a photographer and close friend; Paul Rodriguez as Ferdie Pacheco, Ali’s fight doctor; Nona Gaye as Belinda, Ali’s wife; Mykelti Williamson as Don King; and Jon Voight, believe it or not, as Howard Cosell....

Excerpted from the screenplay for Ali, to be released by Columbia Pictures in December; © 2001 Columbia Pictures.

EXTERIOR. KINSHASA AIRPORT, TARMAC AND ROOF—DAY

WE PUSH THROUGHa crowd and SEEan Air Zaire DC-10 pulling in. A ramp is wheeled up. The plane stops taxiing. Zairean officials in safari suits, paratroopers with white helmets, and hundreds of African, European, and American media people with cameras and lights approach. The hatch opens. A ROAR.We don’t see the source.

INTERIOR. AIR ZAIRE DC-10

ON ALI.Belinda’s behind him. Bingham’s there, Bundini, Dundee, and Luis Sarrici, Ali’s masseur. As they crowd to the door, were shooting OVER ALIstarting down the ramp. He looks out. We don’t see what he sees. We see only the crowd of people at the foot of the ramp, including Don King in a dashiki.

FRONTAL SHOT:Ali looking ABOVEthe receiving party. The ROARagain. He looks side to side, almost distracted from King and the officials. He waves. Distant CROWD ROARincreases. They’re chanting something. We don’t understand the words ...

PAST ALI: REVEAL A THOUSAND PEOPLEbeyond the receiving party. They’re on the roof of the airport. They’re sitting on balconies and fences. They’re waving their arms. They’re on every possible horizontal surface that can support weight. They’re shouting in unison, a syncopated ROAR ... his name and something else. Ali moves through the receiving party, as if in a trance, to get through the airport to the other side. Security tries to keep up ...

EXT. AIRPORT, ENTRANCE AND STREET

Ali emerges and reacts. He’s electrified. REVEAL10,000 more people OUTSIDEthe airport, cheering his arrival. Their cheer is thunder.

ALI:(to Zairean official; shouts) What are they saying, man?!!! Why are they saying that?

ZAIREAN OFFICIAL: They say, “Aliboma ye. Aliboma ye.”

ALI: What’s that mean?! I don’t understand!

ZAIREAN OFFICIAL: It mean ... !

ALI:(can’t hear) What?!

ZAIREAN OFFICIAL:(has to shout) It mean ... “Ali, kill him! Ali, kill him!”

We move forward. The Zairean official and four cops fade back, nervous about being in so large a crowd. The crowd is a tidal wave, carrying Ali forward, supporting, never mobbing him.

Muhammad Ali is overcome. This is all for him. He is their hero. He defied the world’s powerful. They tried and could not destroy him. His defiance made him the people’s champion. And now he has come to contest his rightful title against Foreman, the numb instrument of the all-powerful. Ali raises his arm, too, and shouts ...

ALI: Aliboma ye!

Ten thousand voices carry it on the wind and take away Ali’s breath. He quickly recovers.

ALI: Aliboma ye!

Don King and Zairean officials in the rear realize, as do we, that this is not merely a boxing match.

CUT TO:

INT. AIR ZAIRE DC-IO—NIGHT

A TOWERING MANin denims with sequins blocks our view of the door as he walks out onto the ramp. Only now do we see, BEYOND HIM,a small welcoming party. Native African dancers. A big banner that proclaims, “Welcome, George Foreman.” The Zairean paratroopers, media, and a few dozen of the curious.

FRONTAL SHOT:George Foreman looks like “Superfly” on steroids. His entourage follows him down the ramp. Dick Sadler, tough and smart, is the Louis Armstrong of trainers. Foreman’s aide, the former light-heavyweight champ Archie Moore, crafty and wise, wears a blue shirt and blue pea cap.

If George Foreman wonders at the meagerness of his reception, he doesn’t let on.

INT. ALI'S HOUSE, NSELE COMPOUND—MORNING

Ali sits in EXTREME CLOSE-UPdrinking coffee ... lost in thought. He’s somewhere else, puzzled. He wears gray sweatpants, a thin, rubber, long-sleeved T-shirt under his gray sweatshirt. He’s oblivious to the Euro-modern furnishings. Then it’s time, and he leaves ...

EXT. NSELE COMPOUND—WIDE

Ali enters from his bungalow. We SEEwe’re in a compound. The houses are white and severely truncated, linked by sidewalks and too many large streetlamps (made in China? Czechoslovakia?). Ali starts to jog through this imitation of suburbia whose scale is all wrong. It’s like a gulag in reverse for the rich and powerful, with the rest of the country kept out. As Ali passes, we REVEALwe are at the bank of the Congo River. He starts his pre-dciwn run. Across the river the first band of magenta tints the horizon and reflects molten on the water.

EXT. KINSHASA ROAD—RED DAWN

TRACKING SHOT:Ali running, Dundee and Sarrici alongside in pickup truck, plus two trainers and Lieutenant Nsakala, an ever present Zairean policeman—Ali’s official escort. The early sun paints the red earth ocher.

ALI:(to himself) Fast.

Six left jabs flash from his chest and shoulder, followed by a right hook and left and right uppercuts.

ALI:(to himself) Back up, maaan ... (weaves suddenly; in an-

other voice) ... you fast!

Ali slides to the right and throws a left jab and hooks off the jab.

EXT. EMPTY KINSHASA ROAD—MORNING LIGHT

Ali ENTERS,running. The road is lined with Zairean president Mobutu Sese Seko’s green billboards in French and English, proclaiming Zaire wonderful. A few KIDS emerge from behind the signs ... and they trail Ali.

KIDS: Ali bomaye!

ALI: (repeating) Ali boma ye George Foreman!

And he throws a couple of jabs at an imaginary George Foreman. There are about a dozen kids now.

ALI: (throwing jabs) You out, sucker!

Curious, Ali runs behind the green signs, where the kids came from.

There, he becomes a magnetic attraction. People are surprised to see Ali. He’s making their day. Euphoric kids run parallel to him, run with him, follow him ...

PAST ALI: The concrete-and-cinder-block walls are chromatic. Primary colors. Ethnographically interesting.

Ali SEES interiors. Broken walls. No roof. No plumbing. People come from a ditch with a shower curtain for privacy, surprised to see him. Faces indifferent to squalor. This is the surface manifestation of what, in fact, is civic disintegration starting to occur, the human concomitant of 10 years of Mobutu’s kleptocracy.

Ali looks at the backs of the signs. He and we realize the signs’ purpose: to hide the makeshift plastic walls and the rooms made of cardboard containers and oil drums from the foreigners traveling the road to Kinshasa. One TEENAGER WITH A WITHERED ARM and a big smile runs up ...

TEENAGER: (broken English) You beat them, Ali!

ALI: Foreman? I kill him!

He mimes knocking out Foreman. Something powerful is affecting Ali. We don’t know what it is. He slows down, throws two lightning jabs and a hook. He reaches to the kid’s head and pulls a coin. He flips it to another kid and walks on. A SECOND TEENAGER comes out and wants Ali to look at something around the back. He takes Ali’s hand... and holds it. Ali complies. The entourage follows ...

Around the corner: A KIDS’ PAINTING ON A WALL.

It’s an imitation fight poster. Childlike caricatures in Basquiat-like brush strokes. Foreman’s got crosses for eyes. He’s out! Ali is victorious! His fist is raised. His cartoon face shouts his victory ... the people’s champion. There’s more. There’s knocked-out white policemen, knocked-out black soldiers, knocked-out landlords, knockedout South Africa, knocked-out planes and tanks, knocked-out tsetse flies ... knocked-out everything! This childish painting powerfully affects Ali. The kids look at him. He’s still. Some kids in the back leap up to see what Ali’s doing.

Ali looks at individual faces. A grinning OLDER MAN with a blue transistor radio. A SMILING KID. A GIRL with no shoes. A TEENAGE KID jumping up and down ... all looking at him. Ali makes four pieces of rope appear. He rubs them together ...

ALI: Shazam!!!

They become one. Everybody goes nuts. As Ali leaves, his eyes go back to the people and the painting ...

CUT TO:

EXT. KINSHASA ROAD—MORNING

EXTREME CLOSE-UP on Ali:

ALI: (to himself) ... even if I die here. If it kill me, no matter what ... I gotta win.

As Ali runs, concentration has taken him into the athlete’s zone, the state of unified awareness wherein dwells his total self-knowledge. And he knows the transaction: the crowd gives him their adoration, which he converts to power. What he means to them is specific: he represents them in defying power and vanquishing what oppresses. He validates the existence of expectation ... George Foreman, mute and unknowing, represents disinterested power. Ali doesn’t “accept" his obligation; he embraces it. It is his purpose, revealed. And he will never waver from it.

CUT TO:

INT. INTERCONTINENTAL HOTEL, ANTEROOM—DAY

Ali, sitting on a table edge in a corridor, waits to meet reporters. Noise of a press conference offscreen. HOWARD COSELL crosses through, smoking. Bingham enters and gestures ... they’re ready. Ali waves off Bingham, stops Cosell...

ALI: Howard! How many you ugly sportswriters in there got me over Foreman? Don’t lie.

COSELL: (beat) Some of us ... Norman, me ... are worried. How you gonna dance against George? He’s sparring with a middleweight, training to cut you off. He gets you against the ropes, he can knock you out with either hand.

ALI: (drops facade) What’s the odds?

COSELL: Two-and-a-half-to-one. Against. We’re worried you’re going to get hurt.

No one thinks Ali will win.

INT. MEDIA CONFERENCE ROOM—DAY

CLOSE-UP on Ali:

ALI: This’ll be the biggest upset since Sonny Liston. I want all of you to write it down! This fight is no contest!

We’ve dropped right into the middle of a blast of braggadocio.

ALI: George Foreman is a big mummy. I’ve officially named him “the Mummy.”

Laughter from the reporters.

ALI: George’s punches are like, “Look out, here come the left.” Whomp! (stiff-armed swing) “Here come the right!” Whomp! Like a mummy. But the Mummy can’t hit what it can’t see. I’m fast! Gonna dance. Be all over George. George is gonna feel he surrounded, (beat) And I done somethin’ new for this fight: I done rassled with an alligator.

Anticipatory laughter. The reporters have had 12 years’ experience of Ali’s stand-up and know when a new routine’s starting ..

ALI: That’s right! (laughter again; Ali almost loses it) I have rassled with an alligator. I done tussled with a whale. I done handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail. That’s bad! Only last week I murdered a rock. Injured a stone. Hospitalized a brick. I’m so mean, I make medicine sick.

Laughter.

COSELL: Muhammad, I’m sorry. I have to ask. (he hesitates ...) Are you really fast enough, anymore? To beat George Foreman? Many people believe you don’t have the same skills, that you are not the man you used to be 10 years ago.

There it is. Has doubt, spoken truthfully in the open, elosed the mouth of Muhammad Ali? A beat. Then .. .

ALI: Howard. I didn’t want to talk about this, especially in front of everybody. But I talked to your wife! And she told me you’re not the manyou used to be ... two years ago!

The reporters crack up. Ali's eyes are wide in mock amazement.

CLOSE-UPon Cosell: A bittersweet smile and the eye contact with Ali. Cosell knows ...

CUT TO:

INT. GYM FLOOR—LATE AFTERNOON

A HEAVY BAGis slammed by massive fist. It leaves a dent the size of a deflated basketball. The fist is George Foreman’s.

Dick Sadler holds the bag. Foreman throws hooks, one after another. Each blow rocks Sadler. George is literally punching a hole in the bag. These blows would mash an opponent’s liver, break ribs, destroy kidneys. This man can do more than hurt you. This man can kill you.

INT. RING—LATER

Foreman is sparring with a middleweight partner. He is smaller than Foreman and, therefore, faster. And that’s the point. The partner tries to circle, slide, dance away, and Foreman cuts him off and drives him to the ropes where he tags him. He doesn't put a lot behind it. Partner slides ...

Foreman darts left and jars him with three left jabs, keeping him on the rope. Foreman is training to defeat Ali’s dancing, his “float and sting’’ tactics.

CLOSE-UPon Foreman: He’s young, has unreal power, and he can move.

CUT TO:

INT. TRAINING COMPOUND—LATER

ALI'S ENTOURAGE is entering. Lieutenant Nsakala is there, too. The two fighters time-share the facility. Foreman's entourage, including a group of conga drummers, is exiting. Ali and Foreman are never closer than 10 feet apart. Foreman says nothing. Ali starts banging his hands on Foreman’s conga and shouts at Foreman ...

ALI:As-salaam Alaikum, brothers!(raises one arm) The champ is here!

SIDE ANGLE:The two entourages pass. Foreman looks bigger than Ali. He is denser of bone. He's taller. His chest seems deeper and his shoulders wider.

Foreman’s expression is casual, unrattled by Ali's antics. He is menacing in his indifference. It means he’s immune to getting psyched out by Ali.

INT. RING—LATER

Ali’s sparring partner is Larry Holmes. Ali’s hands are at his side. He dances, bicycles, shuffles, dances, dodges, doesn't throw anything, his elbows at his side. Ali is training to DANCEfrom Foreman. He’s fast, but not seemingly suspended in air as he was 10 long years ago against Liston. How can he beat Foreman?

CUT TO:

INT. ALPS HOUSE, NSELE COMPOUND—MORNING

Belinda and Ali are at the breakfast table.

BELINDA: Here’s your water.

ALI: Bottled water. Frozen steaks. Brought all this stuff like Africans don’t have steaks ...

BELINDA: You could pick up parasites ...

ALI:They eat it.

BELINDA: You’re seeing what you want to see, Muhammad ...

ALI:Mobutu eats it ...

BELINDA: Mobutu is taking care of Mobutu and stealing all the wealth and sending it to Switzerland ...

ALI:(pause) So? What’s that got to do with any of why we here?

BELINDA:(she doesn’t get it) We’re here ’cause Don King got Mobutu to put up 10 million dollars. Don King don’t give a damn about Africa. He worse than Herbert [Ali’s manager and the son of Black Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad],

ALI: Here come “Herbert.”

BELINDA: Yeah. ’Cause where was he when we was broke and borrowing money? And Bundini and all them that “love you”? Disappeared, is where they were, (on a roll) All over you when you got it and drop off you when you don’t ...

ALI: Money? I do “moneymaking” whenever I want. Money is easy.

BELINDA:(running on) And Don King fit right in. That doublebreasted hipster is now a dashiki-wearing rip-off.

ALI: Don King delivered the first black-promoted championship fight in Africa!

BELINDA: Don King talks black, lives white, and thinks green! Why you defending him and “brother” Herbert? (defending them against me—that’s her real point)

ALT’Cause clean-cut Muslims parading on the South Side of Chicago don’t get this done! I got to put honkies with connections and badass niggers to it, too.

BELINDA:(not hearing) And now they got you up against George Foreman. Do they give a damn you could get killed?

ALI: That what this is? Think I gonna lose? Puttin’ doubt on me?

BELINDA:(tears flow) I think, why is my Muslim husband letting himself get strung up on a cross ... ?

She means, “Tell me.” He won’t. Ali picks up his bag and starts out.

BELINDA: Maryum [their daughter] is sick. Maybe I oughta go back to Chicago and look after her.

ALT Sure.

BELINDA: I’ll be back before the fight, (sarcastic) If that’s all right, my husband ...

He walks out the door.

CUT TO:

INT. ALI'S HOUSE, NSELE COMPOUND. SHOWER—NIGHT

Ali stands under the water. It flows like quicksilver down the con-

tours of his face and neck. He is in that zone of concentration where the best athletes go ... where the pre-motor cortex’s activity dominates and facial expression becomes blank, eyes look distant ... Ali’s in his domain.

CUT TO:

INT. ALI'S DRESSING ROOM—NIGHT

The time has come. Dundee wraps Ali’s hands, tears the tape into narrow strips to go between the fingers. Doc Broadus, from Foreman’s camp, observes the wrapping, then signs it. In addition to its function, the taping feels ritualistic.

CLOSE-UPon Ali. His attention is focused elsewhere ... on what he will do, his strategy.

LIEUTENANT NSAKALA:(from doorway) Countdown! Countdown!

RUDY: Countdown is on, bro. Five minutes.

Ali gets off the training table. Dundee has finished. Ali starts warming up before the mirror, throwing punches for a full minute.

Herbert enters. Ali and Herbert go to an alcove.

ALI:(praying) Thanks to Allah ...

LIEUTENANT NSAKALA:(shouts) Four minutes!

Sarria is sticking sealed bottles filled with honey, orange juice, and water into the water bucket. The others gather up the gear and start out. Herbert moves to Ali, preparing for the entrance, to be as close to him as possible for the cameras...

DUNDEE: Give us a moment. Alone, (off Herbert’s look) Hey. This is my religion!

Herbert and his bodyguard follow the others away from Ali. Dundee begins applying Vaseline to Ali’s face. They’re alone in the room.

DUNDEE: It’s hot. Humid. Monsoon season’s about to start. May hit 140 in the ring under the lights.

You all right?

ALI: Why?

DUNDEE: Where you at?

ALI:(looks up) Foreman ain’t no mummy. He’s knocked out 8 out of 11 before the end of the third round. He’s the most dangerous fighter I ever fought.

DUNDEE: I’d worry if I was hearin’ anything else.

Ali loosens up his neck.

ALI: And Ican’t WAIT!

LIEUTENANT NSAKALA: Three minutes!

DUNDEE: Dance.That’s the most important ...

Ali looks at Dundee enigmatically. Before Dundee can ask ...

Bundini throws towels across Ali’s shoulders. Ali puts on his long African robe, which is white with African-graphic trim on the cuffs of the sleeves and the hem.

BUNDINI:(whispers) Forget every battle of man against man, of mind against mind, of soul against soul. This is the one. This is the greatest.

Ali nods to him.

BUNDINI: This is it.

LIEUTENANT NSAKALA: Two minutes!

BUNDINI: The prophet’s come back to claim his own! Get the pretender off that throne!

BUNDINI/ALI: Rumble, young man, rumble! It’s the “Rumble in the Jungle”!

WIDE FROM ABOVE: Ali’s camp starts moving toward the door. They open the door. It is guarded by Lieutenant Nsakala and a handpicked squad of paratroopers.

LIEUTENANT NSAKALA: (shouts) One minute!

INT. CORRIDOR

Paratroopers on either side like a wedge, guarding Ali with Dundee, Bundini, and Herbert, as they push through the door out into the hall.

WE TRAVEL WITH THEM as people at the end of the corridor see Ali. The CHANT begins ...

THE PEOPLE: Ali! Ali! Bomaye! Ali! Ali! Bomaye!

The sound from the corridor picks up a second reverberation that booms from a vast, distant space. We move toward it, to encounter it. And suddenly we ...

BURST INTO THE STADIUM ...

EXT. KINSHASA ARENA—NIGHT

WIDE ON EVERYTHING. Lights flood the arena, pouring down artificial sunshine.

THE PEOPLE: Ali bomaye! Ali bomaye! Ali bomaye!

ROARS from 65,000 voices at a quarter to four in the morning (prime time in the U.S.). The moon is out, revealing storm clouds.

HIGH AND WIDE SHOTS: Ali and entourage. The crowd goes nuts.

TRAVELING WITH ALI THROUGH THE MASS: The crowd roars. Dundee behind, Bundini on one side, Pacheco and Sarria on the other.

EXT. THE RING

WE ENTER WITH ALI: The crowd cheers. Ali raises his hand and salutes them. Ali dances from one end of the ring to the other ... dances into George’s corner ... The crowd roars.

ANOTHER ANGLE: Ali dances back to his corner ...

DUNDEE: George is playing prima donna. He wants to make you wait.

Ali laughs. You won’t psych out Muhammad Ali with that stuff Instead, Ali uses the time. He tests the ropes. He gets the feel of the distance between the center and the corner.

CLOSER ON ALI: He circles the ring. He looks at the crowd from different angles, from the corner, the center ... He looks up at the lights and gets used to the heat from them.

ALI’S FEET do a shuffle. He feels the canvas. He feels the soft spots. The firm spots. He feels how much slide there is because of the resin on the canvas, how much spring there is in the boards ...

Ali sheds his robe and throws a blistering array of jabs and hooks. The crowd goes nuts. Ali looks ringside and sees ...

ALTS POINT OF VIEW: Jim Brown ... Lloyd Price ... farther along, Robert Lipsyte.

EXT. ARENA—AISLE

SUDDENLY out comes Foreman in his red robe, Archie Moore behind him in his blue pea cap, and Dick Sadler—never a fashion plate—in the world’s least attractive T-shirt, followed by Sandy Sadler, his wife.

CROWD: Foreman! Foreman! Foreman! Foreman!

EXT. THE RING

Ali is shadowboxing as Foreman climbs into the ring and crosses past him, near to him. The look on Ali’s face is indifferent. Foreman goes immediately to his stool. He doesn’t move around the ring. He doesn’t touch the ropes.

DISSOLVE TO: Don King walks into the ring wearing black. He’s as tall as only three other men: Foreman, Ali, and Bundini.

Zcick Clayton, the referee, moves to the center of the ring. A great roar fills the air: “ALI BOMA YE! ALI BOMA YE!”... Then another one: “FOREMAN! FOREMAN!”

OVERHEAD SHOT as Ali, Foreman, and both their crews meet in the center of the ring.

CLAYTON: Now, both of you know the rules. When I step back, I want a good, clean break. No hitting below the belt, no kidney punches, no ...

ALL Motherfucker, you ’bout to discover you ain’t nothin’.

CLAYTON: Ali, be quiet!

George’s eyes glare. Ali rocks back and forth, ready to rumble. CLAYTON: No kidney punches. Now ...

ALI: (looking past the referee, eyeballing George) You been

hearin’ about me for years. All your life you been hearin’ about Muhammad Ali. Now you gotta face me.

CLAYTON: Ali, I’ll disqualify you. Now, I want a good, clean, sportsmanlike Fight ...

ALI: (to Foreman) You should have never come to W Africa. ^

Foreman is unfazed by all of this. His cold eyes say “battery and homicide.”

CLAYTON: (blows up) All right!! (beat) Now go to your corners and come out fighting when you hear the bell, and may the best man ... win ...

DISSOLVE TO: Ali turns his back and continues to shuffle and shadowbox.

DISSOLVE TO OVERHEAD SHOT: Ali’s and Foreman’s corners are clear. Ali is facing his corner, praying to Allah. Foreman is bent over at the waist, flexing and releasing the last tension in his huge shoulders, as the bell for ROUND ONE clangs ... □