Bill Simmons gives a potential release schedule for Vince McMahon docuseries.
A multi-part docuseries on Vince McMahon was first announced during the third quarter 2020 WWE financials call. Bill Simmons was tapped as the executive producer for the series while Chris Smith, the director behind Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, was set as the director.
In December 2021, Stephanie McMahon said the docuseries was scheduled to release in 2022, but no exact date was given. In July 2022, it was reported that the docuseries was no longer part of the Netflix slate, but Bill Simmons said in January 2023 that the series was still being worked on.
Speaking to Jimmy Traina on the SI Media podcast, Simmons gave his latest update.
"I think it's going to be the first part of next year. Chris Smith is directing it, I don't know if he's one of the five best documentary directors or one of the three, whatever shortlist there is, he's on it. We spent a lot of time on it. I don't want to say too much...." he said.
Asked if he had access to Vince, Simmons said, "Yes. That was the initial conceit of it. I don't want to say too much, but I think it has the chance to be pretty spectacular."
Asked if it would be one long documentary or multiple parts, Simmons confirmed it would be multiple parts and explained his philosophy on making documentaries.
"It's a few parts. I'm pretty passionate about this. I think people pump...they add parts or make this stuff longer than it needs to be because that's how you get paid more to do a documentary. I'm anti-that guy. I want these things to be the exact right length. I could never figure it out with my column, my column was always too long, but shaping a documentary is a lot like writing a column and figuring out, 'I love that paragraph, but I have to cut it out. This moves better if I take that out.' With documentaries, if someone is doing it correctly, they are amazing pieces of art. It's not just the director. There are a couple of editors, but there is usually one incredible editor, which we have for this. It's a lot of people involved and there is real TLC. You can't think of it like, 'we can stretch this to six hours. This could be six instead of four.' I think that's crazy. This is about Vince McMahon, his life, and wrestling, so obviously, it can't be two hours," he stated.
Finally, Simmons was asked how he thinks Vince will feel about the final product.
"I don't know. I would never speak for Vince. He's been in my life for my entire life. I literally cannot remember my life without him being in it. If you look at him from...strip away all the other stuff and just talk about the last 50 years he had, pretty good topic for a documentary," he said.
Simmons previously stated that Vince won't give notes on the final cut.
Vince's life has changed since the docuseries was first announced as he was investigated for sexual misconduct and hush money allegations, retired as WWE CEO, returned to the board of directors, and made a deal with Endeavor to merge WWE and UFC.
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