ESPN’s ‘The Last Dance’ docuseries about Michael Jordan’s final season as a Chicago Bull came just in time.
Shortly after LeBron James asked for the documentary to be released early with everyone stuck in the house because of COVID-19, ESPN announced they were officially moving the date up to April 19.
But there was pretty huge caveat: The crew still hadn’t finished putting together the documentary. In fact, they still haven’t, according to a report from the LA Times’ Arash Markazi.
Before the date was pushed up, they were going through it. Director Jason Hehir had the final interview with John Stockton on March 10 cancelled because of stay at home orders. By March 16, when all non-essential businesses in New York were shut down, only three episodes were done.
The first three episodes were complete and seven of the 10 episodes were in various levels of post-production when all non-essential business in New York was shut down on March 16. Hehir and his team of five editors had already been working from their New York apartments because two employees at their editing facility had tested positive for COVID-19. The final touches would now come from five different apartments, with editors scheduling Zoom meetings and uploading videos onto Vimeo.
Don’t worry, though. They’re still scheduled to beat the buzzer.
Since then, the crew has managed to finish up to episode nine and are schedule to finish the final episode on May 10. The episode is scheduled to broadcast on May 17.
Whew boy. Talk about cutting it close. Thank goodness they’re getting all this done in time because, otherwise? We’d have absolutely nothing to talk about right now.