Netflix is set to release a documentary about Vince McMahon, with The Ringer’s Bill Simmons serving as an executive producer while Chris Smith will direct it.
During a recent appearance on SI Media with Jimmy Traina, Simmons shared an update on the progress of the documentary. He believes it will be released in early 2024 and mentioned that it will be divided into parts. He said,
“Oh yeah (the Vince McMahon documentary is happening). It’s f*cking awesome. I think it’s gonna be the first part of next year, and Chris Smith is directing it… I don’t know if he’s one of the five best documentary directors or one of the best three or whatever. Whatever short list it’s on, he’s on it and we spent a lot of time on it and I don’t wanna say too much — yes (I had access to Vince). Well that was the initial conceit of it so I don’t wanna say too much but I will say that I think it has a chance to be pretty spectacular.
It’s a few parts and I’m pretty passionate about this. I think people pump, they add parts or they make this stuff longer than it needs to be because honestly, that’s how you get paid more to do a documentary. I’m anti-the guy. I’m pretty crazy about I want these things to be — I’ve been involved in a lot of them. I want them to be the exact right length, because I could never figure it out with my column. My column was always too long but I think with documentaries, shaping a documentary is a lot like and figuring out like, I love that paragraph but I gotta cut that out because this moves better if I take that out and with documentaries, if somebody’s doing it correctly, they’re like amazing pieces of art and it’s not just the director. There’s a couple of editors but they usually have one incredible editor which we have for this… This one’s about Vince McMahon, his life and wrestling so obviously it can’t be two hours.
I don’t know, I don’t know (how Vince will feel about it)… 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 so, I think if you look at him from the — strip away all the other stuff and you just talk about the last 50 years that he had, it’s a pretty good topic for a documentary.”
