Kobe Bryant Was Building an Entertainment Empire
After winning an Oscar for the short “Dear Basketball,” the NBA champion hoped to inspire the next generation of athletes through films, books, TV shows and podcasts.
Kobe Bryant's influence spread far beyond the basketball court. Entertainment was where the shooting guard saw his future, inspired by his own daughters — one of whom died alongside him in the helicopter crash that ended the 41-year-old athlete's life Sunday.
In addition to his five NBA championship wins, Bryant was also an Oscar winner, collecting the best animated short statuette in 2018 for the sweet and inspiring autobiographical story “Dear Basketball,” which was based on a poem he wrote when he retired from the sport in 2015. Bryant went on to found Granity Studios to create sports-themed films, TV shows and books. “The best way to inspire the next generation of athletes is through stories,” Bryant said at a post-screening Q&A for “Dear Basketball” at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival. “You can sit here and say things, say ‘you need to be devoted and work hard.’ But if you do it through stories, then it tends to sink in more.”
At the time of his death, Bryant was just getting started. After his death, even former President Barack Obama expressed sadness over the deaths, and noting they came just as the star was beginning "a meaningful second act."
He was the subject of Spike Lee's 2009 feature documentary Kobe Doin' Work, which chronicled a day in the life of the Lakers star as the team went up against the San Antonio Spurs. After retiring, Bryant was determined to tell some stories on his own, with help (of course) from other creatives. Entertainment became a team sport too, and Bryant was eager to go in unexpected and unlikely directions.
Last September, Bryant's production company published the young adult novel Legacy and the Queen, a hybrid sports and magical fantasy written by author Annie Matthew from a story by Bryant. The book follows a 12-year-old tennis player named Legacy who sees winning a tournament in her kingdom as the way to save an orphanage that protects kids her age who have no one else to look after them. Publishers Weekly praised the book, saying it had “plenty of charm, and Legacy is a protagonist worth cheering for.”
Bryant also created the radio play podcast The Punies, about a scrappy and diverse group of neighborhood kids who are each pursuing big sports dreams. The series, which featured 15-minute fictional stories and playful original songs, debuted last August, and a second season was reportedly underway.
He was also the producer and co-host with Peyton Manning of ESPN's sports analysis series Detail, among other appearances and projects in development. As a young basketball star he also dabbled in music, releasing the rap single "K.O.B.E." in 1999, although the mic was not something he picked up again.
Like so much of his dynamic career on the court, “Dear Basketball” was a power move into entertainment. Bryant shared his Oscar win with director Glen Keane, who animated the title characters in the Disney films The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Pocahontas and Tarzan. The athlete's narration was accompanied by a sweeping score from legendary composer John Williams.
There were still barriers to entry in Hollywood for Bryant. Despite the Oscar victory, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences did not offer him membership, citing a lack of filmmaking experience. The 2003 accusations that he raped a 19-year-old woman also haunted his career as a filmmaker and storyteller, just as it forever loomed over his basketball career. (The case was dropped in 2004 when the woman declined to testify, but the #MeToo movement resurrected concerns about how the investigation into the powerful sports figure played out.)
More than 17,000 people signed a petition demanding that Bryant’s Oscar nomination be revoked over the accused rape. When the case was dropped in 2004, Bryant issued an apology while maintaining he didn't think he had committed a crime. “Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did," he wrote.
In the nearly two decades that have passed since, Bryant had four daughters with his wife, Vanessa. One of those daughters, 13-year-old Gigi, was reportedly also killed in the helicopter crash. After retiring from basketball, Bryant said the girls had a profound impact on the work in entertainment he planned to do.
“What goes into creating all of the stories that come out of our studio centers around our own personal experiences with our own kids, generally,” he said in a September 2019 interview with Bleacher Report. “And me certainly in particular, having young girls at home and trying to figure out how to communicate positive messages to them, they get tired of hearing me and Vanessa talk about it all the time, so it's important to put it in different forms of media so it seems like it's not coming from us. That tends to be the inspiration behind most of the ideas that come out of our studio.”
Bryant's many friends in the entertainment industry took to social media to express their sadness, becoming a gathering place for fans who were also shaken. Dwayne Johnson posted an image of Bryant and Gigi laughing in their court side seats with the message: "Love is forever," collecting more than a million likes and thousands of messages in a matter of minutes.
Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman shared an image of himself with the basketball great via Twitter. "I’m heartbroken. Shocked. Husband, Father, Strategist, Philosopher-Poet, Warrior-Athlete, Filmmaker...your focus is magnetic, Kobe. My love goes out to you and your family."
The actual crash site in Calabasas was along a hiking trail, as seen in aerial footage on TV news broadcasts. Fragments of Bryant's private Sikorsky S-76 helicopter were scattered over a wide area, with only a few segments identifiable as part of the aircraft. Even hours later, the wreckage was still smoking, and blankets covered the bodies as investigators inspected the scene, awaiting the arrival of the county coroner's office.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said nine people died in the accident, including the pilot, but he did not identify any of the deceased. "It is entirely inappropriate right now to identify anyone by name, until the coroner has made the identifications through their very deliberate process and made their notifications to the next of kin," he said at a press conference Sunday afternoon. "It’s extremely disrespectful to earn that your loved one perished through [tabloid media.] That’s just wholly inappropriate. So we’re not going to be going there."
He acknowledged that authorities are aware of who was likely aboard. "We are assisting the families who believe they have been impacted," Villanueva said.
Hundreds of fans gathered on the streets near the hillside crash, sharing stories of favorite memories of favorite games with each other, many of them wearing Bryant Lakers jerseys, and visibly crying.
0 Comments