Shaye Ogbonna’s highly-rated miniseries, Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist, is being praised by critics and audiences as “compelling, raucous, and well-crafted.” It’s no wonder that it currently holds a 95% on the Tomatometer and a 94% on the Popcornmeter. The show is based on the 2020 true-crime podcast about an armed robbery that took place the night of Muhammad Ali’s historic 1970 fight — and how it ultimately transformed Atlanta. The first three episodes are available to stream on Peacock, and the show is set to conclude with an eighth episode on October 8.
RT’s Mark Ellis sat down with Ogbonna and the cast to talk about what is was like working together, seeing themselves in character for the first time, and Dexter Darden’s experience stepping into the role of Muhammad Ali.
Mark Ellis for Rotten Tomatoes: What was the biggest challenge with playing an iconic figure like Muhammad Ali?
Dexter Darden: Definitely the speech pattern, the dialect. The physical part was part of it, but, predominantly really, it’s the fact that everybody has their own idea of this man, and for me, how can I make everybody’s idea feel like it’s personal to them?
What was it like having Samuel L. Jackson on set?
Terrence Howard: I’ve known Sam since I was eight years old. He used to be the doorman inside of the Manhattan Plaza. My grandmother lived at the plaza, and I spent the summers there. He’s watched me grow up and watched me get in trouble, but this is our first time really getting to work together, and he just kept telling the same old stories that we had heard growing up. And you love the sentimentality of this simple person: loud voice, but he comes from a very sincere place in his heart. For Sam, he was really the anchor of this whole thing — in front of the camera and behind the camera.
Watch the video for the full interview with Kevin Hart, Taraji P. Henson, Dexter Darden, Don Cheadle, Sinqua Walls, Chloe Bailey, Terrence Howard, Will Packer, and Shaye Ogbonna.
95%
Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist: Limited Series
(2024)
premieres on Prime Video on August 29, 2024.
