Prince documentary director says Netflix’s cancellation of project is “a joke”
The director of a shelved Prince documentary has called Netflix’s decision to cancel the project “a joke.”
The streaming giant announced that the nine-hour film from director Ezra Edelman would be axed last month following concerns from the late musician’s estate over the documentary’s alleged contents.
In September, The New York Times reported that the film will contain allegations of “physical and emotional abuse” against Prince from his former girlfriend Jill Jones.
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Members of Prince’s estate had responded to the reports by labelling the film “a nine-hour hit job,” with legal representatives insisting they would be “working to resolve matters” around its release.
In a statement sent to the Minnesota Star Tribune following its cancellation of the film, Netflix said: “The Prince Estate and Netflix have come to a mutual agreement that will allow the estate to develop and produce a new documentary featuring exclusive content from Prince’s archive. As a result, the Netflix documentary will not be released.”
During an appearance on the podcast Pablo Torres Finds Out, Edelman told journalist Pablo Torres that the decision to cancel the series is “a joke… I can’t get past this.”
“The short-sightedness of a group of people whose interest is their own bottom line,” he continues. “They’re afraid of his humanity. This is a gift, a nine-hour treatment about an artist that was, by the way, fucking brilliant. Everything about who you believe he is is in this movie. You get to bathe in his genius.”
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The Academy Award-winning filmmaker, who also created the 2016 documentary OJ: Made in America, reportedly spent five years creating the documentary, which features footage and testimonials from the director’s “unprecedented” access to Prince’s archives alongside interviews with his former managers, band, partners and one of his sisters.
According to The Guardian, Edelman had been granted access to Prince’s archive in a “multimillion-dollar deal” with the estate — and was assured at the time that the estate would not be allowed to have a say on the film’s contents.
“The estate, here’s the one thing they were allowed to do: Check the film for factual inaccuracies,” Edelman said on Pablo Torres Finds Out “Guess what? They came back with a 17-page document full of editorial issues — not factual issues. You think I have any interest in putting out a film that is factually inaccurate?”
“The irony being that Prince was somebody who fought for artistic freedom, who didn’t want to be held down by Warner Bros., who he believed was stifling his output. And now, in this case — by the way, I’m not Prince, but I worked really hard making something, and now my art’s being stifled and thrown away.”
Megan Townsend is Mixmag’s Deputy Editor, follow her on Twitter
