NBA Hall of Famer and five-time NBA champion, Magic Johnson, gives his thoughts on Matt Reeves ‘The Batman.’
During an interview with Variety, in which Magic Johnson discussed everything from his storied NBA career, to his diagnosis of HIV, to his current business ventures, Magic discussed his love of movies and what he thought of Matt Reeves’ The Batman.
At one point in the interview, Johnson shares his experience as a businessman and what it meant to be a black man in boardrooms chock-full of white people.
Magic says he saw racism up close in many of those incidents, “I sat in some boardrooms, and some things that I’ve heard come out of people’s mouths about urban America — oh, wow,” he says.
“And I can’t say nothing. I got to remain professional.” These capitalist men would ask him, “Why should we invest in Black people?” “You sit here and say, ‘Wow, they still live back in the ’50s and ’60s.’”
Magic would go on to talk about how his business ventures led him back to the cinema, which he seems to have always loved. In 1995, in partnership with Sony Retail Entertainment, he opened a chain of movie theaters that aimed to serve Black audiences, starting with the Magic Johnson Crenshaw 15 in Baldwin Hills.
“He wasn’t just investing in it,” says Lon Rosen, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of the Dodgers, who was Johnson’s agent from 1987 to 2012. “He was involved in the building of it and in the operation of it — the food selection. He knew they needed more hot dogs and more flavored drinks. He’s very attuned to his community.”
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Magic Johnson still loves to go to the movies with his wife, Cookie. He says that he always buys two separate tubs of popcorn, because after growing up with nine siblings in a working-class family, he no longer has to share.
“I’ve seen every ‘Batman,’” he says, adding that he saw the most recent iteration starring Robert Pattinson on the day it opened. “And it didn’t disappoint, either.”
