Prince Doc Canceled At Netflix, Estate Will Work With Streamer On Alternative

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The Prince’s Estate announced late last week that a nine-hour documentary about Prince, which was completed for Netflix, will be scrapped and replaced with a new documentary.

After the late icon died in 2016, the Prince Estate’s management made a deal for a multi-part documentary originally directed by Ava DuVernay. When DuVernay dropped out of the project, citing creative differences, the streamer tapped Ezra Edeman, director of the Oscar-winning series OJ: Made in America, to take over.

“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 and the Prince Estate said in a statement. “As a result, the Netflix documentary will not be released.”

Edelman turned in a nine-hour series on Prince, several hours over the original agreement. The documentary includes exclusive footage and music never heard by the public from his famous vault, which fans had been clamoring for since the artist’s untimely death. But once the documentary was completed, the Prince estate, led by Prince’s former lawyer Londell McMillan, objected to its content.

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Per multiple outlets, it was said that the Edelman documentary wasn’t sufficiently “positive” and that parts of it were inaccurate and/or sensationalized. The alarms rang when a 2024 New York Times story interviewed people, including Questlove, who had seen the documentary, which included allegations from former girlfriend/collaborator Jill Jones that Prince physically assaulted her.

Edelman also said that when he agreed to have Revolution bandmates Wendy and Lisa talk to him, he found the documentary’s “emotional center.” This led the Prince fan community to believe that the documentary would center around Prince’s most commercially and artistically acclaimed Purple Rain era at the expense of the entirety of his four-decade career.

“Anyone disparaging or slandering Prince has a problem with me,” McMillan wrote on X. “He had human flaws, as we all do, but he was a great man, greatest artist ever, philanthropist, innovator, and he helped many people including me.”

While McMillan was never specific about his objections to the documentary, it’s possible that he felt that a critical examination of Prince’s personal life, including his relationships with various girlfriends and wives, would obscure his vast musical legacy. While most of the controversy is known to the Prince fan community, for casual fans and new ones who the Estate would like to sell the legendary ‘vault’ music to, focusing on Prince’s flaws isn’t good for business.

It’s also true that when it comes to Black artists, those flaws are often depicted front and center instead of their accomplishments and innovations. Prince was not just one of the most prolific artists of his time; he was also an early advocate for artist rights, one of the first artists to sell music directly to fans via the internet, a champion of female artists in multiple disciplines, and a dynamic live performer who also wrote for and collaborated with other artists.

It is fairly extraordinary that a completed documentary on an artist is scrapped, especially one about an artist as big as Prince. However, Netflix and the Estate, which includes the 50% stake that Primary Wave owns, apparently agreed. The doc’s cancellation opens up the opportunity to share more ‘vault’ music with fans, as Netflix had the exclusive rights to unseen footage and music due to the doc.

No word on when a new documentary will be released or who will be attached as director.