The heist behind the Peacock series “Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist” happened 54 years ago in Atlanta after a Muhammad Ali comeback fight, a heist that became infamous for its audacity and led to a string of deaths involving what was called the Black Mafia.
This big-budget, eight-episode series, which debuts Thursday, features five A-list actors and no shortage of marketing dollars. Kevin Hart nabs his weightiest role to date as Atlanta hustler and dreamer Gordon “Chicken Man” Williams. He faces off against Atlanta’s first Black detective, JD Hudson, played with steely resolve by Oscar-winning actor Don Cheadle.
At the start of the series, set in 1970, Chicken Man runs a numbers game with Vivian (Taraji P. Henson) but has bigger aspirations. He organizes a big post-Ali fight casino party at Vivian’s home in Collier Heights with men tied to big-time New York mobster Frank Moten (Samuel L. Jackson) and his sidekick, Richard “Cadillac Richie” Wheeler (Terrence Howard).
Some Atlanta opportunists hear about the party and decide to rob Chicken Man’s attendees. The thieves, rifles drawn, strip them down and steal $1 million worth of jewelry and cash, a monstrous take in 1970. They didn’t realize at first that many of their targets were part of the Black Mafia featuring kingpins from all over the country.
The key players escape as the cops arrive, but the Black Mafia wreaks revenge over the span of the final five episodes. Jackson, furiously chewing a cigar, gets to convey his trademark steely anger with booming pronouncements. Hart’s Chicken Man ― at times charming, at times wheedling ― scrambles to clear his name and stay alive, desperately teaming with Hudson as a supremely unlikely duo trying to solve the crime.
Henson’s Vivian, a composite character created by the screenwriters to bolster a female character in an otherwise testosterone-heavy story, plays both vulnerable and savvy. And Howard’s Cadillac character, with a comedic flip perm, is all winks, nods and smiles, which may or may not play into his backstory.
“Not much fazes Cadillac Wheeler,” said Will Packer (”Girls Trip,” “Ride Along”), a celebrated Atlanta executive producer during an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last month at Paschal’s. The legendary restaurant, frequented by civil rights legends and celebrities for decades, is featured in the first episode of the series.
Credit: Parrish Lewis/Peacock
Credit: Parrish Lewis/Peacock
“Fight Night” was the first series shot at the newly opened Assembly Studios in Doraville this past spring in the space that once housed a General Motors auto plant. The AJC was given exclusive access to the set at the time.
The Ali fight scene was shot in mid-March with more than 300 extras dressed in 1970 garb on a soundstage set up to look like the Atlanta Municipal Auditorium, which now houses Georgia State University’s Alumni Hall. Those 300 extras, many wearing sideburns, furs and bouffant coiffures, later became 3,000 people in the TV series through the magic of special effects.
Assistant director Van Hayden gave the extras instructions on the set to help set the scene: “You guys are talking among yourselves. There’s an anticipation, a buzz in the air. You paid big bucks for these tickets. There was a red carpet. Now is the moment for the big entrance by the Ali contingent. Let’s give him a mixed reception.”
Ali had been blacklisted from boxing after refusing to enlist in the Vietnam War in 1967. In 1970, promoters worked with Atlanta politicians to make this unsanctioned Ali comeback fight happen and give the city an economic lift. But many Americans at the time still saw Ali as a draft-dodging traitor.
On set, a slight haze replicating cigarette smoke emanated through the air minus the odor. After the director called “action!”, extras offered up a hearty blend of boos and cheers as Ali, played by Dexter Darden, entered the ring. Cheadle’s Hudson kept a watchful eye for anyone who might hurt Ali.
Credit: Eli Joshua Adé/PEACOCK
Credit: Eli Joshua Adé/PEACOCK
During a break between takes, Darden did some fake jabs at Cheadle, who instinctively backs away. “See how quick he was with his hands?” Darden said with an Ali-style grin and glint in his eye.
While most indoor scenes were shot at Assembly, the series was able to use the exteriors of the actual home in Collier Heights where the heist happened, as well as Chicken Man’s original home in the same neighborhood. Production designer Toni Barton was also able to redecorate part of the atrium of the Hyatt Regency to replicate what it looked like in 1970, three years after the then-futuristic architectural marvel opened. “There were employees who have been around for 40 years who say we did a great job making it look like it did back in the day,” Barton said.
The series in the very first frame notes that not everything that shows up on screen is remotely true, especially what ensues after the heist. Part of the issue, producer Jeff Keating said, is that many of the details about the robbers and how they died are fuzzy at best.
“Our goal creatively was to depict how these events were integral in the creation of Atlanta as ‘the Black mecca’,” executive producer Shaye Ogbonna said. ”In order to achieve that, we had to take more creative license developing characters and storylines in the aftermath of the robbery.”
Credit: Parrish Lewis/Peacock
Credit: Parrish Lewis/Peacock
Kenny Burns, a veteran DJ formerly of V-103, had known about the heist story for years and in 2013 tracked down the rights holder, Keating, to see if there was a way to turn it into a movie. Packer got involved, a screenplay was written and Universal Pictures signed on. But at the same time, Hart at Warner Bros. was trying to get a remake done of the 1974 film “Uptown Saturday Night,” which starred Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier and was loosely based on the heist.
In the end, neither “Fight Night” nor the “Uptown Saturday Night” remake made it to screen at the time, and the story languished in Hollywood’s “hold” bin. In 2020, Burns, Packer and Keating were able to turn the story into a podcast featuring Keating as the narrator and audio of his own 2003 interviews with both Chicken Man and Hudson together. (Both men have since died.)
“The podcast allowed us to show people how we would tell the story,” Packer said. “You have various POVs. It became our calling card.”
The podcast helped players like Hart get back into the game. Packer has worked with Hart on multiple projects over the years, including “Think Like a Man” and both “Ride Along” films.
“I told Kev to give the podcast 20 minutes,” Packer said. “He called me back and said he listened to the whole thing and wanted to do it. That’s how the ball really got going.”
IF YOU WATCH
“Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist” first three episodes available Thursday; next five episodes airing weekly after that on Peacock
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