On the latest episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out, Torre sits down with Oscar-winning filmmaker Ezra Edelman to discuss why his nine-hour documentary on Prince never made it to Netflix and is EXTREMELY unlikely to ever see the light of day.
Imagine spending five years of your life making a documentary on a pop culture icon like Prince and no one getting the chance to see it. That is precisely what happened to Edelman, who is largely known for his work Oscar-winning producing and directing the ESPN 30 For 30 documentary O.J.: Made In America. He compared the feeling of not getting the documentary out to the last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where there is a warehouse full of crates filled with treasures, and now his documentary, called The Book of Prince, is sitting in one of them.
Edelman’s approach over the five years as he made the documentary was that no one knows who this guy is, so I’m going to find out. He shared that this differs significantly from R. Kelly’s situation, where horrid truths emerge en route to punishment. Edelman expressed that he may not know everything about Prince but maintains that many people don’t want to see a film that may tarnish their perception of him. However, Edelman stressed that Prince’s life is more about the journey of how he became who he is through it all.
Prince’s estate essentially put up roadblocks that could not be navigated around when it came to a release of Edelman’s documentary. Representatives for Prince’s estate claimed that the film’s first cut was filled with “dramatic” factual inaccuracies and sensationalized renderings of parts of Prince’s life. Edelman called this a joke and said the Prince estate had the right to go back and look for factual issues, but instead, they came back with a 17-page document filed with editorial issues NOT factual issues. This prompts Edelman to ask: Do you really think I have any interest in putting out a film with factual issues?
Oscar-winning director Ezra Edelman speaks for the first time about Netflix and Prince's estate mutually agreeing to not release his documentary.
"It's a joke. … I can't get past this — the short-sightedness of a group of people whose interest is their own bottom line. They're… pic.twitter.com/Q8xsIsuRsY
— Pablo Torre Finds Out (@pablofindsout) March 4, 2025
Torre says it does bring up an interesting question over who has the right to claim editorial authority. More simply put, who has the truth? But Edelman sees it more as a question of who has control. He says this is reflective of Prince himself, who Edelman says was notoriously one of the most famous control freaks in the history of artists. The irony, according to Edelman, is that Prince was someone who fought for artistic freedom who didn’t want to be held down by his label as he felt as though they were stifling him and now it’s Edelman whose work is being stifled and thrown away.
Edelman asked Torre what his impression of Prince was after seeing the movie, and even though Torre does not identify as a Prince fan, he admires the musician for his approach to his craft. Torre admitted that from what he saw, he characterized Prince as one of the most impressive artists who ever lived. And that leads to what Edelman finds galling and what he can’t get past — the short-sightedness of a group of people whose interest is their own bottom line. Edelman says they’re afraid of Prince’s humanity. Edelman even says the lawyer representing Prince’s estate told him that the documentary could cause generational harm, that in essence, the portrayal of Prince in this doc would deter younger people from loving Prince.
Edelman sees it differently, however, believing that his documentary serves as a gift, a nine-hour film on a brilliant artist. Everything that you believe Prince is is in this documentary, and Edelman simply wanted fans to bask in Prince’s brilliance and confront his humanity. Edelman considered Prince to be struggling with his own humanity but could not confront it because he was caught up in how he was portrayed to the world and had to work hard to maintain that facade.
Fast-forward to today, and the 1984 movie Purple Rain, starring Prince, will arrive on Broadway in 2025. Some critics view the film as Prince playing himself; however, to Edelman’s understanding, the stage play adaptation will water down Prince’s character to make him more palatable for the modern-day 2025 audience. This move is exactly the problem that Edelman has, as when the movie came out in 1984, Prince could hide behind air quotes the fictional component of his character, but some parts of the film are true to Prince’s actual story. Instead of celebrating the cult classic that came out four decades ago, Edelman contends that the theater wants to sanitize and water down Prince’s image and he expressed that that is messed up. It ultimately comes down to his conclusion that if the whole focus was to release a play, he would not believe his documentary had a chance.
Check out the below episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out. Stay tuned, everybody, stay tuned!
SHOW BREAKDOWN
The Banned Prince Documentary: Director Ezra Edelman (Finally) Speaks
- The best documentary filmmaker in America spent nearly five years of his life making a nine-hour masterpiece for Netflix. Which has now, officially, been cancelled. In his first sit-down interview about “The Book of Prince,” director Ezra Edelman seeks catharsis — if not closure — in the battle for the truth and control over the life story of one of the biggest control freaks ever. Prince was a shape-shifter who lived and died as a mystery. So why won’t his estate lift the veil? And when it comes to celebrities, what does “public interest” really mean?
VIDEO:
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