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From Prince to Michael Jackson: why are the most controversial documentaries getting canned?

As Netflix scraps an epic series exploring the Purple Rain star’s complexities, and Max takes down Leaving Neverland, we ask: are celebrity-endorsed docs, such as the $40m Melania Trump hagiography, the future?

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. 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.

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