Shaking Up The World By Tom Gray
N o locale is more apt to open a Muhammad Ali biographical drama than the Colosseum in Rome. We all know that an 18-year-old Cassius Clay captured light heavyweight gold in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Italy’s capital, kicking open the door to stardom before he’d punched for pay. But when you consider what Ali would later stand for as both a heavyweight champion and a beacon for racial equality and freedom of religion, the ancient warrior battleground for gladiators was almost made for him, stone by stone. The Greatest (2026) is the first authorized and fully scripted series devoted to Muhammad Ali and will premiere on Amazon Prime on November 4. In early September, I was
his Olympic triumph, his conversion to Islam, some potent challenges within his own family environment and a destiny- fueled ascent to the heavyweight championship of the world. Ali’s story has been dramatized many times. In 1977, the man himself starred in a biopic, also titled The Greatest , but the downside was that Ali served as unofficial censor for that movie. The final product was vanilla, while reviews were mixed. In 2001, Will Smith played the great man in a star-studded epic, Ali , directed by Michael Mann. The movie had plus points, but while Smith received an Oscar nomination, the actor synonymous with The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Men in Black struggled to win over many critics. Other worthwhile dramatizations include Muhammad Ali’s
lucky enough to be granted access to all eight episodes, and in terms of performances, narrative and visuals, the results were outstanding. The story takes us from Clay’s humble beginnings in Louisville through
Greatest Fight (2013), which focused on the champ’s refusal to participate in the Vietnam War, while One Night in Miami (2020) used an ensemble cast to play Cassius Clay, Malcolm X, football player Jim Brown and singer
Jaalen Best faced the challenge of portraying one of history's most charismatic people.
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