HBO and Words + Pictures are currently in production on a documentary chronicling Barry Bonds, one of the greatest talents in the history of baseball, and one of the most compelling and polarizing figures in all of sports.
Keith McQuirter, (“By Whatever Means Necessary: The Times of Godfather of Harlem”) who spent his childhood in the San Francisco Bay Area, isdirecting the film with Academy Award®-winner Ezra Edelman (“O.J.: Made in America”) serving as an executive producer alongside Connor Schell and Libby Geist, creators of the Emmy® Award-winning series, “30 for 30” and executive producers of “The Last Dance.” The filmmakers will include a diverse cast of influential figures from Barry Bonds’ life and career, and the opportunity for Bonds to actively participate and share his firsthand experiences remains available.
McQuirter says of the forthcoming doc, “Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1990s, Barry Bonds was the ultimate superstar. You couldn’t escape his name or his game, his story, or his personality. Every time he stepped up to the plate, the energy was electric – because he wasn’t just competing with his contemporaries, he was competing with history. Bonds was undoubtedly controversial, but no matter how you felt about him, his pursuit of becoming the greatest player of all time was mesmerizing. Through a series of interviews, we will illuminate the untold story of Bonds, providing an intimate look behind the scenes. It will all add up to a complex journey that was one of the most enduring and consequential tales in American sports history – a tale I can’t wait to tell.”
The untitled HBO Sports Documentary will tell the story of Barry Bonds, baseball’s single-season and all-time home run king, from his beginnings as the son of All-Star Bobby Bonds, and godson of the iconic Willie Mays, all the way up to his meteoric rise in the 1990s and 2000s. Using archival footage and original interviews, the film will chronicle Bonds’ emergence as one of the game’s most talented all-around players with the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants and then his years as a superstar with the Giants when he rewrote the record book in his late 30s amid controversy. All throughout, Bonds’ path to the doorstep of the Hall of Fame was an epic saga of sports, society, and culture in America.
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