Spike Lee to use unseen footage in Colin Kaepernick docuseries for ESPN
Lee will be given access to footage from Kaepernick's personal archive for the still-untitled ESPN series
Colin Kaepernick and Spike Lee are joining forces. The film industry titan is set to take on the sports icon’s life in a multipart documentary series for ESPN.
This upcoming docuseries is reportedly part of Kaepernick’s first-look deal with Disney, which the sports star and activist signed in the summer of 2020, theGrio reported. The documentary is being produced by ESPN Films and 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks and will give Lee access to never-before-seen footage from Kaepernick’s personal archive.
An official release date and title have yet to be released.
The press release, obtained by Variety, states, “Kaepernick, who has never given a full, first-person account of his journey, is collaborating closely with Lee who plans to use extensive new interviews and a vast never-before-seen archive to help Kaepernick tell his story from his perspective.”
Lee took to Instagram to celebrate the upcoming project, sharing a picture of himself with Kaepernick along with text from the press release.
This is not Lee’s first collaboration with ESPN on a popular sports star. In 2009, Lee directed the documentary film, Kobe Doin’ Work, based on the Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant. Jemele Hill also joins the upcoming Kaepernick docuseries in an executive producer role.
This announcement comes months after the premiere of another project about Kaepernick, a coming-of-age series from Ava DuVernay for Netflix. The series, Colin in Black and White, earned glowing reviews, followed a young Colin (played by Jaden Michael), and fused his journey throughout his youth with various historical references to highlight the power of his activism.
DuVernay opened up to theGrio at the time about telling Kaepernick’s story and revealed she wasn’t particularly focused on changing perception with the project.
“The beautiful thing about being a filmmaker is that I can express a story that’s on my heart or something that I want to tell or share, and everyone comes to it with whatever baggage they have, whatever thoughts, ideas, history that they have,” she explained.
Kaepernick has not played professional football since the 2016 season when he first knelt during the national anthem in protest of police brutality and racism in this country. While the NFL has “encouraged” teams to hire him, he has yet to receive a contract since.
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