Kyrie Irving’s "Uncle Drew" Is Skipping Australian Cinemas, Going Straight to Amazon in August

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It's the most disrespectful treatment of an Australian-born NBA icon since Ben Simmons was left out of the 2018 All-Star game: we've learnt Kyrie Irving’s Uncle Drew movie won't be released theatrically Down Under.

The film’s distributor, Lionsgate, has informed Student Edge that Irving’s feature film debut—also starring Tiffany Haddish and Shaq—will skip Aussie cinemas and instead be made available to stream via Amazon Prime Video on 28 August.

This is despite the fact that five-time NBA All-Star, Olympic gold medalist and 2016 NBA champ Irving was born in Melbourne and holds dual Australian and American citizenship.

Needless to say, this is, without hyperbole, an international incident in the making.

The film (inspired by Irving’s Pepsi commercials in which he plays an old man who regularly schools young punks in surprise games of pick-up) is due out in American cinemas on 29 June, and is something of an Infinity War-level event for sports fans, bringing together generations of legendary basketballers in ridiculous make-up. (Shaq is, at least physically speaking, very much a real-life Thanos.)

But the rapidly growing NBA fandom in Australia will need to wait an extra, interminable 61 days to witness Irving’s glorious cinematic triumph. And they won't even be able to do so in the warm communal embrace of a packed-out theatre.

Since Irving, now of the Boston Celtics, was birthed in Melbourne in 1992, we have reached out to various members of the government (state and federal) to comment on this scandalous development (seriously), and we will update this article accordingly when we hear back.

At least the soundtrack to Uncle Drew—featuring A$AP Rocky, Gucci Mane, Khalid, Logic, Leikeli47 and more—is already available.

Update (22/06):

Oh well, we still have the @matthewdelly movie coming?? anyway. 👀 https://t.co/cdaADxtO7E

— Andrew Bogut (@andrewbogut) June 22, 2018

Update 2 (31/08):

Well, 28 August has come and gone and Uncle Drew is not yet available on Amazon Prime Video in Australia. We have reached out to Lionsgate International to clarify when exactly Uncle Drew will drop in Australia, and in what form.

Photo: Lionsgate