According to award-winning actor Jamie Foxx, the planned motion picture on the life of Mike Tyson is finally moving forward.
Since the 2014 announcement that Foxx, now 52-years-old, would star in a biopic as the former undisputed heavyweight champion, the project has had numerous delays and other issues that continued to put the film on the shelf.
During an interview with filmmaker Mark Birnbaum over Instagram Live, Foxx revealed the Tyson film is coming together.
"It's a definitive yes," Foxx said. "Doing biographies is a tough thing. Sometimes it takes 20 years to get them done, but we officially got the real ball rolling.
"I met Mike Tyson in the weirdest way, I was on stage doing stand-up years ago [when I was 22]. I get to my Mike Tyson joke and nobody claps, nobody laughs. You know why? Because Mike Tyson was watching.
"So I started hanging out with Mike Tyson so I got to see Mike in two different ways, two different lives. I saw him at the height of his career and then when things got bad, things got bumpy, I also saw him as well, so what I'm excited about the movie is to show those moments of the different Mike."
Foxx explained that the upcoming movie will show how Tyson was an angry fighter with numerous personal issues and eventually evolved to a highly likable cross-over celebrity.
"That's the person that we want to show," said Foxx. "We want to show everybody evolves. Everybody comes from a good or bad place and I think when we lay the layers on Mike Tyson in this story, I think everybody from young and old will be able to understand this man's journey and the way we'll place it."
To physically prepare for the role, Foxx is currently doing 60 pull-ups, 60 dips and 100 push-ups every other day.
"I guarantee you, people will run up on me in the street and ask for an autograph and think that I'm Mike," Foxx said.