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Director Spike Lee’s multi-part documentary series for ESPN Films about former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who sparked a national debate when he protested racial injustice nearly a decade ago, will not be released, the filmmaker and ESPN said.
“ESPN, Colin Kaepernick and Spike Lee have collectively decided to no longer proceed with this project as a result of certain creative differences,” ESPN said in a statement to Reuters on Saturday. “Despite not reaching finality, we appreciate all the hard work and collaboration that went into this film.”
Lee told Reuters on Friday that the series was not going to be released.
“It’s not coming out. That’s all I can say,” Lee said on the red carpet ahead of the Harold and Carole Pump Foundation dinner, a fundraiser for cancer research and treatment, in Beverly Hills, California.
Asked why, the Oscar-winning director declined to elaborate, citing a nondisclosure agreement. “I can’t. I signed a nondisclosure. I can’t talk about it”.
Kaepernick ignited a national debate in 2016 when he knelt during the US national anthem to protest systemic racism and police brutality. The 37-year-old has not played in the NFL since that season. Many experts believed his political activism, which triggered a movement that drew the ire of Donald Trump, was the key reason teams were wary of signing him. He later filed a collusion grievance against team owners, which was settled with the league in 2019.
Representatives for Kaepernick did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Production on the series began in 2022, with Walt Disney-owned ESPN touting it as a “full, first-person account” of Kaepernick’s journey that would feature extensive interviews with the player.
Last year, Puck News reported the project faced delays amid disagreements between Kaepernick and Lee over the direction of the film.
The series is co-produced by Jemele Hill, a former ESPN reporter who was suspended by the network in 2017, after she suggested that fans who disagreed with criticism of NFL players taking a knee from the owner of the Dallas Cowboys should boycott the team’s advertisers. A month earlier, she had enraged the White House when she tweeted: “Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists.”
The network’s decision to drop the series comes as the Trump administration has sued broadcasters that reported critically on the president and pushed private businesses and schools to end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that the government now defines as unlawful discrimination against white Americans.
In December, Disney’s ABC News agreed to pay $15m to a foundation and museum to be established by Trump as part of a settlement in a defamation lawsuit Trump filed against the network.
