Sydney Poitier. Diana Ross. Bill Cosby. Hank Aaron.
These are only a handful of the many celebrities who, along with hundreds of socialites, journalists and civil rights leaders, entered the Atlanta Municipal Auditorium (now Georgia State University’s Dahlberg Hall) on Oct. 26, 1970, for what would become the comeback fight for then-disgraced boxer Muhammad Ali. It was Ali’s return to the ring after being banned from the sport for more than three years for refusing to join the military and for his opposition to the Vietnam War.
And while the historic fight with Jerry Quarry would help revitalize Ali’s career and spotlight Atlanta as a “Black Mecca,” it also ushered in one of the most brazen, if not most obscure, heists in the nation’s history.
The aftermath is the basis for the new miniseries, “Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist,” which was filmed in Atlanta and premieres on Peacock on Thursday.
The eight-episode historical crime drama is led by Kevin Hart, Taraji P. Henson and Samuel L. Jackson. Hart plays Gordon “Chicken Man” Williams, a numbers-running hustler who decides to host an elaborate casino afterparty with a “who’s who” of celebrities and underground criminals.
After word gets out about the event among locals hungry for their piece of the pie, thieves walk into the event armed and walk out with $1 million in cash and jewelry.
Immediately targeted as the prime suspect for the crime, Chicken Man must rely on Atlanta detective and long-time advisor J.D. Hudson (Don Cheadle) to help him clear his name.
The miniseries is based on the 2020 podcast of the same name. Producers Jeff Keating and Kenny Burns originally pitched the concept several years ago as a feature film.
The top name on their list to take on the project was Will Packer, a longtime Atlanta resident who has used the city as a main character in the box office hits “Ride Along,” “No Good Deed” and “Little.”
“I said, ‘Wait a minute, Muhammed Ali banned from boxing at the time, refused to go to Vietnam … he came and did an unsanctioned boxing match in Atlanta which attracted the attention of celebrities and athletes and gangsters from all over the country…,'” said Packer, who was unaware of the crime before the pitch.
“This writes itself, this is amazing.”
Describing the project as “a love letter to Atlanta,” Packer enlisted writer and Atlanta resident Shaye Ogbonna to help bring the story from the podcast onto the screen.
Ogbonna — who drew inspiration not only from the podcast but also from TV series like “The Wire” — said that taking the research into his own hands allowed him to “hear the voices” of his characters.
“It was going to the house and seeing the basement. It was talking to people in the community. It was talking to my own relatives and friends and people who were connected,” said the miniseries creator and showrunner. “It helped kind of do a lot of the work that I needed to do as far as world building.”
One aspect he wanted to focus on which was primarily absent from the podcast was the stories of the robbers and the assailants that were involved.
“A lot of these people that were involved in the robbery, they were community people,” he said. “Whether you’re looking at the dealers, you’re looking at the pushers, the government, the cops, it was important for me that we show this entire community as being involved in this particular story.”
While typically keen to tell Atlanta-based stories through a modern-day lens, Packer said there was a sense of “trepidation and anxiety” in taking on the miniseries.
“You want to get it right,” he said.
“You gotta be really authentic because audiences are so particular these days, and they’ve got access to information and they are very discerning and they will say, ‘That is not what the tables looked like in the ’70s. Uh-uh. This ain’t it!’”
While most interior scenes were filmed at Assembly Studios in Doraville, the production traveled to some of the real-life locations where the events occurred, including the Collier Heights home where the robbery took place, as well as the Hyatt Regency Atlanta.
The experience of filming and developing “Fight Night” helped cement to Packer why he keeps his production company based in Atlanta.
“I love Atlanta’s amazing collection of cultures, of personalities, of people from all over,” he said. “This is a story about real Black Atlanta back in the ’70s. There are many stories like that and others [to tell].”
“Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist” premieres on Peacock on Thursday.
