{"id":350198,"date":"2025-08-16T22:39:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T22:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/350198\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T22:39:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T22:39:10","slug":"espn-will-not-air-spike-lees-docuseries-on-quarterback-colin-kaepernick-spike-lee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/350198\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN will not air Spike Lee\u2019s docuseries on quarterback Colin Kaepernick | Spike Lee"},"content":{"rendered":"

Director Spike Lee<\/a>\u2019s multi-part documentary series for ESPN<\/a> Films about former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick<\/a>, who sparked<\/a> a national debate when he protested<\/a> racial injustice nearly a decade ago, will not be released, the filmmaker and ESPN said.<\/p>\n

\u201cESPN, Colin Kaepernick<\/a> and Spike Lee have collectively decided to no longer proceed with this project as a result of certain creative differences,\u201d ESPN said in a statement to Reuters on Saturday. \u201cDespite not reaching finality, we appreciate all the hard work and collaboration that went into this film.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee told Reuters on Friday that the series was not going to be released.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not coming out. That\u2019s all I can say,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Asked why, the Oscar-winning director declined to elaborate, citing a nondisclosure agreement. \u201cI can\u2019t. I signed a nondisclosure. I can\u2019t talk about it\u201d.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> that drew the ire<\/a> 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<\/a> with the league in 2019.<\/p>\n

Representatives for Kaepernick did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Production on the series began in 2022, with Walt Disney-owned ESPN<\/a> touting it as a \u201cfull, first-person account\u201d of Kaepernick\u2019s journey that would feature extensive interviews with the player.<\/p>\n

Last year, Puck News reported<\/a> the project faced delays amid disagreements between Kaepernick and Lee over the direction of the film.<\/p>\n

The series is co-produced by<\/a> 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\u2019s advertisers. A month earlier, she had enraged the White House when she tweeted<\/a>: \u201cDonald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w\/ other white supremacists.\u201d<\/p>\n

The network\u2019s 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<\/a> to end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives<\/a> that the government now defines as unlawful discrimination against white Americans.<\/p>\n

In December, Disney\u2019s ABC News agreed<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Director Spike Lee\u2019s multi-part documentary series for ESPN Films about former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who sparked a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-350198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115040850325049031","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}