It’s been years since Colin Kaepernick, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback who stirred up a national controversy for kneeling during the national anthem before games in protest of police brutality, last played in the league.
However, Kaepernick has managed to remain in the headlines. Most recently for a planned documentary series that acclaimed director Spike Lee planned to work on in conjunction with ESPN and Netflix.
Unfortunately, the project has been scrapped due to “creative differences.”
“It’s not coming out. That’s all I can say,” Lee said, per Awful Announcing. “I can’t. I signed a nondisclosure. I can’t talk about it.”
“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. “Despite not reaching finality, we appreciate all the hard work and collaboration that went into this film.”
Now, Lee is saying that he has no plans to sell the project to another company.
“No, it’s unfortunate, but I mean, I’ve moved on,” he said.
Fans reacted to the news on social media.
“Even if you’re super progressive, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to sit through a Colin Kaepernick documentary,” one person wrote on Twitter.
“I disappointed cuz it would’ve been a whole new round of dunking on him. My guess is spike was very sympathetic but wanted to show Kap had some culpability, kap demanded spike tell the story how he wanted & that killed it, otherwise it would’ve been sold to someone else,” one person added.
“Now that the NFL, literally, has ownership in ESPN, journalism is (and really has been) a thing of the past,” another person wrote.
It’ll be interesting to see if a Kaepernick documentary gets done with another director at the helm.
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.