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.”
