Latest news with #EzraEdelman
The Guardian
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
From Prince to Michael Jackson: why are the most controversial documentaries getting canned?
It can be a painful thing, acknowledging that our heroes are both human and flawed, but Ezra Edelman spent five years doing just that. The film-maker behind 2016's sprawling, Oscar-winning OJ: Made in America, was at work for Netflix on what, by all accounts, would have been the definitive Prince documentary: a nine-hour behemoth drawing upon dozens of interviews with the late icon's associates and rare access to his personal archive. The film – according to the few who've seen a rough cut – built a layered portrait of Prince's immense genius and complexities, including a darker side concealed by his playfully eccentric persona: his allegedly cruel treatment of girlfriends and female proteges; his demanding ruthlessness as a bandleader. 'We're asked to sit with Prince's multiplying paradoxes for many hours, allowing them to unsettle one another,' wrote Sasha Weiss, of the New York Times Magazine, after viewing it. We won't, unfortunately, get that opportunity. In February, Netflix scrapped Edelman's documentary after executors of Prince's estate, reportedly upset by its content, fought for months to block its release. The streaming platform plans to develop 'a new documentary featuring exclusive content from Prince's archive.' In other words: a watered-down take, to placate the powers that be. This dispiriting saga reveals much about the bleak state of the celebrity documentary complex in 2025: they are plentiful on streaming platforms yet increasingly indistinguishable from sponsored content. In raw numbers, documentaries are more popular than ever, but they also feel more toothless and risk-averse. Netflix's capitulation lays it all out in the open, reflecting a climate in which dull, sanitised celebrity docs flood the marketplace while distributors balk at complicated and/or unauthorised films providing complex portraits of their subjects. The Book of Prince frightened Prince's estate because they couldn't control it. But some of the most compelling music docs in recent memory are animated by singular directorial perspectives, not transactional access. That includes Questlove's fascinating Sly Lives!, which uses the rise and fall of enigmatic funk legend Sly Stone as a vehicle to explore cultural pressures on Black pop stars. By comparison, the band-authorised Becoming Led Zeppelin feels like a work of sheer legacy-minded mythmaking. The performance footage is electric, but interviews with the surviving members steer away from squirmy subjects, like plagiarism charges or underage groupies; complicating wrinkles are smoothed over. There's a blurring line between journalism and PR fluff in documentaries lately. It is increasingly common for celebrities to produce, or play a significant behind-the-scenes role, in documentaries about themselves. If the gold standard for this category is Beyoncé's concert films, then Netflix's Harry & Meghan, a six-hour exercise in brand management, made with their own production company, may represent the nadir. As Edelman put it, viewers are 'being served slop'. In 2020, Hulu released a four-part series on Hillary Clinton, obscuring the fact that Clinton had chosen the production company and had input over the editing process. Similarly, Taylor Swift selected the director of 2020 documentary Miss Americana, a fitfully revealing glimpse behind the scenes of the Swift empire, then went on to make 2023's massively successful Eras Tour movie through her own production company. The problem isn't that such films exist; it's that they suck up all the oxygen – and money – from documentary distribution. In recent years, streaming services have filled up with docs about beloved celebrities, some quite worthwhile (2020's Zappa, 2021's Tina), others blandly reverential (Albert Brooks: Defending My Life, Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story). Entertainment companies gobble up fawning documentaries about public figures, but won't touch anything controversial. Consider that Leaving Neverland, HBO's bombshell 2019 film investigating child abuse allegations against Michael Jackson, has effectively disappeared. It was permanently removed from Max after a lawsuit from Jackson's estate – a troubling omen, as Slate's Sam Adams argues, 'at a time when media access is under the near-total control of streaming conglomerates'. (A sequel, Leaving Neverland 2, hit YouTube recently to minimal fanfare.) A similar dynamic threatens to spread to the literary world. Last year, the influential rap group De La Soul denounced a book about them by music journalist Marcus J Moore and claimed to be 'exploring all of our legal options'. In a higher-profile case, Meta recently sued to block promotion of a tell-all memoir from a former employee, an effort that backfired deliciously. It will be an impoverished world where authors fear to publish unauthorised biographies because they can't afford to be sued by the subject. The corporate culture of capitulation has only worsened since Trump's re-election. In December, ABC News agreed to pay $15m to settle what some consider a frivolous lawsuit from Trump. In April, the executive producer of 60 Minutes resigned, saying his journalistic integrity had been compromised by corporate higher-ups, who have been considering their own Trump settlement. Sign up to Film Weekly Take a front seat at the cinema with our weekly email filled with all the latest news and all the movie action that matters after newsletter promotion No wonder film companies fear releasing anything that might upset the tweeter-in-chief. Consider that last year's sleazily gripping Trump biopic The Apprentice struggled to find a domestic distributor until a small company, Briarcliff Entertainment, stepped in. (Briarcliff's founder argued that the bigger studios had spurned it 'strictly based on cowardice'.) Consider, too, that the remarkable documentary No Other Land, which won an Oscar for its wrenching depiction of Palestinian life in the occupied West Bank, still doesn't have a proper US distributor. Meanwhile, Amazon Prime (whose parent company recently donated to Trump's inauguration, which its CEO Jeff Bezos personally attended) is spending $40m to make a Melania Trump vanity documentary, from which the first lady will reportedly profit. Projects like that are closer to propaganda than journalism, and this one's being bankrolled and legitimised by one of the largest and most powerful streaming companies in the entertainment industry. Documentaries ought to challenge and hold power to account more than they flatter. Instead, in a landscape where a few streaming companies owned or run by billionaires dominate the documentary market in the US, viewers are paying the price.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Oscar Winner Ezra Edelman Slams ‘Short-Sighted' Netflix Over Scrapped Prince Doc: ‘My Art Is Being Stifled'
Ezra Edelman did not mince words when asked for his perspective on his Prince documentary being scrapped at Netflix. While on the 'Pablo Torre Finds Out' podcast in an episode that aired Tuesday, the Oscar-winning 'O.J.: Made in America' director said Netflix and Prince's estate thinking his nine-hour, six-part docuseries would harm the artist's legacy is 'a joke.' 'Here's the one thing they were allowed to do – check for factual inaccuracies,' Edelman said. '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?' Edelman was quick to point out that Prince championed artistic freedom and now a documentary about his life is being blocked for its maker's own creative decisions. 'I'm not Prince, but I worked really hard making something and now my art is being stifled and thrown away,' he said. Watch a segment from the interview below: Edelman later added, 'I can't get past this – the short-sightedness of a group of people whose interest is their own bottom line. They're afraid of his humanity. The lawyer who runs the estate essentially said he believed this would do generational harm to Prince.' Netflix and the Prince estate released a statement in early February announcing that Edelman's project would not release and the streamer would be putting together a different documentary on the legend. '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,' Netflix said in a statement. 'As a result, the Netflix documentary will not be released.' When Edelman signed on for the project, he was given access to the late artist's archives to produce a six-hour series. According to a report by the New York Times, he instead turned in a nine-hour cut of the docuseries that included Prince's ex-girlfriends accusing him of both physical and emotional abuse. 'This is a gift — a nine-hour treatment about an artist that was, by the way, f–king brilliant,' Edelman finished. 'Everything about who you believe he is is in this movie. You get to bathe in his genius. And yet you also have to confront his humanity.' The post Oscar Winner Ezra Edelman Slams 'Short-Sighted' Netflix Over Scrapped Prince Doc: 'My Art Is Being Stifled' appeared first on TheWrap.
CBS News
07-02-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Prince Estate and Netflix cut ties on documentary
MINNEAPOLIS — A nine-hour documentary exploring the life of Prince will not be released on Netflix, and a new film will be produced by the Prince Estate. A statement posted on the official Prince Facebook page Thursday said the following: "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." A 30-second video was posted on Prince's official X page Thursday with accompanying text saying "The Vault Has Been Freed. #FREE." Oscar-winning filmmaker Ezra Edelman had worked for nearly five years on the documentary exploring every facet of Prince's humanity, from his genius to his flaws. Sasha Weiss, a deputy editor for the New York Times Magazine, has spent around one-and-a-half years reporting on the film's creation, and its shelving. She says Prince's estate changed leadership while it was being made. "Nobody from the estate spoke with me on the record, but my sense is that they don't like this really complicated, checkered, sometimes negative portrayal of Prince," she said during an interview with WCCO in January. Weiss says Edelman interviewed more than 70 people for the documentary. Charles Spicer with Prince Legacy, one of the companies that owns Prince's estate, tweeted in September, "Would you be OK with a director putting explicit coroner photos of your loved one in a documentary? #showsomedignityandrespect." Note: The above video first aired on Jan. 9, 2025.
Washington Post
07-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Netflix nixes controversial Prince doc in a win for the late artist's estate
Netflix said Friday it would not release a nine-hour documentary about Prince, directed by the Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ezra Edelman, that reportedly included accounts of abuse by the pop star. Instead, the late pop star's estate will develop and produce a different documentary for the streamer drawing on unreleased Prince material, according to a joint statement made by Netflix and Prince's estate.
Yahoo
07-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Netflix Cancels Controversial Prince Documentary Release
A controversial Prince documentary has officially been shelved. Director Ezra Edelman has been developing the six-hour film over the last four years but the project has now been halted, freeing 'the vault' to be used in other ways. '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,' Netflix said in a statement shared with Variety on Thursday (Feb. 6). 'As a result, the Netflix documentary will not be released.' The official X account for Prince confirmed the news as well, posting a clip with the caption: 'The Vault Has Been Freed #FREE.' The video included a message that read, 'Despite everything, no one can dictate who you are to other people. The truth is, you are either here to enlighten or discourage. Although the highly anticipated release has been in the works for quite some time, the decision to block it may not come as a surprise to many. Reps for the Purple Rain artist's estate previously shared concerns last summer about 'dramatic' factual inaccuracies in the first cut of the film. They also stated sources close to the situation thought certain renderings of events were 'sensationalized' on the screen. Edelman, best known for creating the O.J.: Made in America documentary, was 'given extensive access to Prince's archives, with the first drafts for the deal,' according to Variety. He reportedly delivered nine hours of footage, which was three hours greater than the contracted agreement, so the violation of the agreement 'presumably enabled the estate to withhold music rights.' According to a September 2024 article in the New York Times titled 'The Prince We Never Knew,' the doc includes an incident about a fight Prince had with his ex-girlfriend Jill Jones, where she slapped him and he 'punched her in the face over and over.' The writer describes the film as a work that evoked 'amazement, pity, disgust, tenderness,' as it also included portions about his genius music ability, career-defining moments, him leaving his young wife Mayte Garcia after the couple lost their child, and accounts of his own abusive childhood. More from Tyka Nelson, Prince's Sister, Dead At 64 Halle Berry Reveals Prince Once Asked Her Out In The Sweetest Way Prince Fans Question John Legend's "Let's Go Crazy" Rendition At Democratic National Convention
