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Spike Lee has officially closed the book on his long-buzzed-about Colin Kaepernick documentary, confirming that the project won’t be seeing the light of day on ESPN—or anywhere else.
The filmmaker revealed the news during a recent interview with Business Insider, saying the split actually happened way before the headlines. “That thing fell apart a year ago,” Lee admitted on Tuesday (Aug. 19). “No one had ever asked me about it. I was on a red carpet and a guy asked me the question, I wasn’t going to lie.”
ESPN echoed his statement while speaking to Reuters on Saturday (Aug. 16). “ESPN, Colin Kaepernick, and Spike Lee have collectively decided to no longer proceed with this project as a result of certain creative differences,” the network said in a statement.
Initially announced back in 2020 and going into production in 2022, the doc was supposed to be a multi-part deep dive into Kaepernick’s journey—from Super Bowl quarterback to the face of athlete activism. Lee planned to weave in rare archival footage from Kaepernick’s personal collection, while the former NFL star himself framed the project as a way to “correct the narrative.”
But according to Puck News, disagreements kept the series in limbo. Reports suggest there were clashes over focus: should it highlight Kaepernick’s personal story or widen the lens to to include the experience of other Black athletes in professional sports who have spoken out on social justice issues (one thinks of Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Arthur Ashe, the WNBA’s Natasha Cloud, and others)? ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro was even reportedly open to letting Lee and producer Jemele Hill shop the project elsewhere.
Spike, however, says he’s not interested in chasing a new platform. “No, it’s unfortunate, but I mean, I’ve moved on,” he said. “That was a year ago.”
For now, the Spike/Kap story is another “what could have been.”
