If you haven’t yet watched Chapter 7 of Who Shot Mamba? you might want to do so – what follows will be filled with spoilers, because this segment is LOADED with revelations.
Do it, then join me below.
(If you haven’t watched Chapters 1-6, you have some homework to do, friend.)
Again…spoilers follow…
So Calvin Stadiums is the instigator of the shooting of Mamba, and continues to threaten people with guns.
If you haven’t quite put the pieces together, Calvin Stadiums is 90% based on Wizards star and gun enthusiast Gilbert Arenas…and this was written well over two years ago – long before he was suspended by the NBA for his firearm incident.
Calvin is so much a Gilbert avatar that a couple years back we were in discussions with Arenas’s people about him playing the character. We were told “yes” at one point and put the entire production on hold to wait…and wait…and wait.
Dylan Mooney came in and owned the role in a way that made for a better movie anyway, but we hold that Gil has The Curse of the Mamba hovering over him.
You laugh, but guess who was very close to playing Sherpa (from Chapter 1) and then decided against it?
Yep…Greg Oden.
In any case, while writing WSM?, just how much Gilbert was there inserted into Calvin? Here’s the breakdown of the basketball-based aspects of the character:
GILBERT ARENAS
- Obvious play on the name
- Uniform number
- Agent Zero/Henchmen Zero
- Aloof and Quirky
- Obsessed with Orange Roundie
- Unique father-son relationship
- Big Tiger as symbol of sorts
- Washington, DC
- Gunplay (unintentional)
MICHAEL JORDAN
- Greatest ever
- Gambling problem
- Competitive arrogance
- Petey Skippen sidekick
KOBE BRYANT
- the complete lack of self-awareness the younger Kobe had
The biggest Calvin-Gilbert-gun similarity of all is something I can’t talk about until the movie is over, but it was what struck me most heavily when the Arenas/gun stuff started, because it was something I had decided on years ago.
Keep watching – and there’s much more about the transition from Arenas-to-Stadiums right here.
