A nine-hour documentary about the late singer Prince has been put on pause because of differences between his estate and the doc’s production team.
The film, which was originally going to stream on Netflix, is “dead in the water” after the “Kiss” singer’s estate viewed the project and claimed it was littered with “‘dramatic’ factual inaccuracies and ‘sensationalized’ renderings of certain events from his life,” a source told Variety.
Specifics about the alleged falsehoods are not available, but a source told Puck, which was the first to report the news, that “it’s not revelations of drug use or sexual stuff.” The estate felt that certain moments in the documentary were “‘sensationalized’ and not properly fact-checked,” according to Variety, and the film’s director Ezra Edelman allegedly was not receptive to the feedback. However, different sources reportedly claim that the problem was about “control,” and the estate feeling that the documentary was not “positive” enough, per Puck and Variety.
The six-part series was approved for a six-hour run. Edelman instead created a nine-hour project, “a violation of the agreement that presumably enabled the estate to withhold music rights,” Variety reported. The director is reportedly “devastated” by the news as he has been working on the documentary for over four years.
Netflix and Edelman maintain the final cut of the film, but releasing the documentary without Prince’s music would more than likely create significant “creative and commercial” challenges, per Variety.
Netflix and representatives of Comerica Bank, the interim executor for Prince’s estate, signed the deal for the documentary in 2018. Ava DuVernay was originally attached to direct the project, but was replaced by Edelman who was reportedly “given extensive access to Prince’s archives and produced a cut of the film that was screened recently for insiders,” according to Variety.
Recommended Stories
DuVernay tweeted about making the film in 2018, saying that “Prince was a genius and a joy and a jolt to the senses.”
“The only way I know how to make this film is with love. And with great care. I’m honored to do so and grateful for the opportunity entrusted to me by the estate,” the Oscar-nominated director said at the time.
