The Last Dance has been a major hit for ESPN as soon as it began airing in April. However, it was a challenge getting the project off the ground, and it has been a bigger challenge finishing it. According to Arash Markazi of the Los Angeles Times, The Last Dance isn’t completed despite early episodes airing. The final episode of The Last Dance is scheduled to be completed this week.
“Director Jason Hehir had been scheduled to travel to Spokane, Washington to shoot the final interview for the project — with former Utah Jazz star John Stockton — on March 10,” Markazi wrote. “But ESPN called him off the trip, fearing that airline flights might be canceled and he would be stranded. The day after he was supposed to meet with Stockton, March 11, the NBA suspended its season. Contrary to the usual practice of having an entire series complete before it debuts, work on episode 9 was finished Friday and the final is scheduled to be done by May 10, as viewers watch episodes 7 and 8.”
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One of the reasons The Last Dance is not finished is the docuseries was supposed to be released in June. However, with the NBA suspending its season in March due to the coronavirus pandemic, fans called for the series to be moved up, which led to producers getting episodes up as quickly as possible despite still working on the final episodes. This upcoming Sunday, the seventh and eighth episodes are set to air on ESPN, and director Jason Hehir talked about how he was surprised Michael Jordan approved the two episodes.
“The Steve Kerr thing is only a story that’s told, and he was eager to tell that, and Steve was, too,” Hehir said on the Dan Patrick Show. But this treasure trove of footage that we had from the NBA, what we tackle in Episodes 7 and 8 next week is what it was like to play with Michael, and then what it was like to play against him, in 7 and 8, respectively.”
“And the with Michael stuff, man, I don’t know if you would want to practice with Michael Jordan. It would be fun to watch; I don’t know if it would be fun to interact with him during that because he is hard. He wanted to make those harder than any game could possibly be. And in the East back in the ’90s, that meant making it as rough and as mentally grueling as possible.”
