Christopher Hunt is Okahoma born and bred. He grew up going to Oklahoma State basketball games. So it was only fitting he directed the quintessential Eddie Sutton documentary, “Eddie.”
Director Christopher Hunt said, “After Eddie had been denied the hall of fame, I just felt like it was a major injustice in the sports world. And with Eddie, the bulk of his career being in our own backyard, I thought we were uniquely equipped to be able to tell this story.”
So Hunt and his team have done just that, their labor of love for nearly four years.
Hunt says, “It was getting the blessing of the family to do the story, raising money to be able to produce a film like this. That all took time, that took about a year before cameras even rolled. We’ve gotten over 30 interviews for the movie so that took a lot of time to track all those people down.”
But it was worth the wait. Names like Dick Vitale, John Calipari, Bill Self, a host of cowboys like Doug Gottlieb and Desmond Mason we’re all interviewed. Even former president Bill Clinton.
Hunt added, “Who Eddie was really friends with at the University of Arkansas. President Clinton was a law professor there at the time Eddie was coaching. They became friends and remain friends to this day.”
But out of all the people they interviewed one person, to their surprise, made the film. Sean Sutton.
“Hearing his story and his relationship with his father, it’s been tough. They’ve had their ups and downs. And that was the part of the movie I didn’t know what to expect. That was what took it to another level.”
As production carried on they were in the room as Eddie was told time and time again he didn’t make into the basketball hall of fame. But this year was different, and despite having the film already done, Eddie got the call.
Hunt says, “We knew how we were going to handle it. So I was able to do that very quickly.”
With the film finally complete, the next step is finding a distribution partner to release it. 1577 productions is looking at a number of options but it could find a home at a streaming service like Hulu or Amazon. But until then Hunt says he has not regrets about this film. He hopes it inspires a new generation of Oklahoma storytellers.
Hunt closes by saying, “There’s been several moments along the way that I know our team has kind of looked around and had like a few pinch me moments like wait is this happening to us? I want people to know that if you live in this area of the world that you can do big things.”
