Ezra Edelman, the director behind the impeccable OJ: Made in America, made a nine-hour documentary about Prince for Netflix, but it looks like it won’t see the light of day — at least not anytime soon.
Streaming services release tons of new documentaries every month, with recent hits including Netflix’s in-depth investigation into the Laci and Scott Peterson case and Michael Bay’s Born Evil series about serial killer Hadden Clark.
However, OJ: Made in America is a once-in-a-lifetime effort. Widely regarded as one of the most ambitious documentaries ever made, the 7.5-hour series won an Oscar at the 89th Academy Awards for telling the football player’s life story while also tackling themes of race and celebrity.
So it’s no surprise that when Netflix wanted to make a documentary series about the famous singer Prince, the streamer reached out to Edelman. What followed was five years of blood, sweat, and tears, but now it seems the finished product is stuck.
The plot of the documentary Prince
Through extensive research, dozens of interviews, and exclusive access to Prince’s personal archive known as “The Vault,” Ezra Edelman’s nine-hour documentary for Netflix peels back the curtain on Prince and offers unparalleled insight into his life on and off the stage.
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The New York Times has published a new dive into the documentary series, revealing more details about its contents. It discussed the vault, a basement room in Prince’s Paisley Park home and studio that is filled with unreleased recordings and concert footage, as well as drawings and photos.
The report describes how Prince, whose full name is Prince Rogers Nelson, was mysterious in real life and rarely gave interviews, culminating in his death in April 2016 from a fentanyl overdose, although he “always seemed to disdain drugs and alcohol.”
“Access to the vault allowed us to tell a more detailed story about Prince than had been previously revealed,” he said. However, it quickly became clear that even the contents of the vault had been curated, with one of the two senior editors, Bret Granato, telling the outlet that it was “not that different from an Instagram account or a Facebook page.”
The most interesting and revealing revelations come from the 70 interviews Edelman and his team conducted for the Netflix docuseries, including with his former muses and girlfriends, one of the most damning being the one with Jill Jones.
In the book, she describes an incident in 1984 when Prince invited her and her friend to a hotel. He started kissing the friend in front of Jones, so she slapped him, to which he reportedly said, “Bitch, this is not a good idea.” [expletive] film.” He allegedly began “hitting her in the face repeatedly.”
These moments are interspersed with examples of Prince’s songwriting genius, while also demonstrating his difficult upbringing, where he suffered emotional abuse and never let go of his desire for his father’s approval.
As Sasha Weiss, one of the few people who attended the documentary’s preview screening, said, “Edelman manages to present a deeply flawed person while still granting him greatness – and dignity.” However, the project has been plagued by many problems since then.
The controversy surrounding the Netflix documentary explained
Despite the years of work that went into creating the documentary series, the title is now held up by Prince’s estate, and some fear it may never be released. Part of the reason is that the Purple Rain singer-songwriter never wrote a will.
With her estate divided between her sister Tyka and her five half-siblings, the situation was “chaotic.” When Netflix contacted Edelman, she had negotiated a settlement with the estate, which a court had placed under the administration of Comerica Bank & Trust.
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But in 2022, everything changed. A Minnesota court divided Prince’s assets between the Primary Wave music company, Prince Legacy LLC, comprised of three heirs and attorney L. Londell McMillan, and music producer Charles Spicer.
First, the newly acquired estate barred Edelman from accessing the vault. Then, in 2022, representatives were able to view the first part of the documentary, which featured Prince in his early years. The filmmaker told the New York Times that they were unhappy with the “content and tone.”
In 2023, another problem arose when Lisa Nishimura, the Netflix boss who had negotiated the initial deal, was fired. When it came time to show the final draft to the estate, McMillan reportedly responded with 17 pages of notes and edits, later telling Edelman that he believed it would “harm Prince for generations.”
Weiss continued: “Several people I spoke to said they believed McMillan’s objections boiled down to a fear that the film would lead to Prince’s cancellation and devalue the estate’s bottom line.” But the bigger problem seems to be its length.
Reportedly, part of the original deal with Netflix stipulated that the documentary series should be no longer than six hours, but when asked if that was true, Edelman said he was unable to comment at this time.
A Netflix spokesperson provided the following statement when asked about the documentary: “This documentary project has proven to be as complex as the Prince himself.
“We have meticulously archived Prince’s life and worked hard to support Ezra’s series. But there are still significant contractual issues with the estate that are delaying the documentary’s release.”
All of this means the documentary series may never be seen, with the streamer unable to say whether it’s true or not. As Weiss put it, “through some sinister cosmic poetry, it too remains locked in the vault.”
For more documentary news, find out if Born Evil’s Kristin Bluefin is a real person, what you need to know about the Menendez brothers before Monster season 2, and what happened to Worst Ex Ever’s Mei and Rosa.
