As Netflix scraps an epic series exploring the Purple Rain star’s complexities, and Max takes down Leaving Neverland, we ask: are celebrity-endorsed docs, such as the $40m Melania Trump hagiography, the future?

It can be a painful thing, acknowledging that our heroes are both human and flawed, but Ezra Edelman spent five years doing just that. The film-maker behind 2016’s sprawling, Oscar-winning Oj: Made in America, was at work for Netflix on what, by all accounts, would have been the definitive Prince documentary: a nine-hour behemoth drawing upon dozens of interviews with the late icon’s associates and rare access to his personal archive.

The film – according to the few who’ve seen a rough cut – built a layered portrait of Prince’s immense genius and complexities, including a darker side concealed by his playfully eccentric persona: his allegedly cruel treatment of girlfriends and female proteges; his demanding ruthlessness as a bandleader.