A documentary on Prince made by O.J.: Made in America creator Ezra Edelman for Netflix has now been canceled.
In a report from Selection, the streaming service stated in an announcement to the outlet that it could not be transferring ahead with Edelman’s undertaking, and would as a substitute be working with Prince’s property on a movie.
“The Prince Property and Netflix have come to a mutual settlement that can permit the property to develop and produce a brand new documentary that includes unique content material from Prince’s archive,” Netflix stated. “Consequently, the Netflix documentary won’t be launched.”
Final 12 months, a New York Occasions journal article was revealed detailing the Edelman-led documentary, with the story noting that the undertaking included interviews with Prince’s ex-girlfriends, a few of whom accused him of bodily and emotional abuse. In line with the Occasions, the documentary additionally touched on abuse he confronted throughout his childhood.
Edelman’s undertaking was a six-part docuseries; he had been given in depth entry to Prince’s archives after he was enlisted to tackle the documentary after changing Ava DuVernay, who was the unique director, in line with Selection.
Nevertheless, in June final 12 months, the outlet, citing information publication Puck, reported that the docuseries was “useless within the water” after representatives for Prince’s property deemed a reduce of the undertaking featured “dramatic” factual inaccuracies and different points.
Selection additionally famous that Edelman’s reduce got here in at 9 hours — three over the six-hour deal for the documentary — which violated “the settlement that presumably enabled the property to withhold music rights,” the outlet reported.
“Though Netflix and Edelman preserve last reduce of the movie, a Prince documentary with out his music would face daunting, if not insurmountable, artistic and industrial obstacles,” Selection added.
Within the Occasions’ 2024 report, Netflix had stated of the undertaking on the time, “This documentary undertaking has proved each bit as complicated as Prince himself. We’ve got meticulously archived Prince’s life and labored exhausting to help Ezra’s collection. However there are nonetheless significant contractual points with the property which are holding up a documentary launch.”
