Two-time NBA champion Craig Hodges in dispute over rights to documentary on his life and career

Craig Hodges is in a battle with Wayfarer, a production company, over the rights to a documentary about his career.

In 2021, Hodges and Wayfarer came to an agreement to make a documentary, which would have used his book, Long Shot: The Triumphs and Struggles of an NBA Freedom Fighter, as source material. The project ultimately fell through.

Peter White of Deadline detailed that Hodges “has spent much of the past 12 months trying to get the rights to the project back.”

White also detailed the issues that Hodges and Wayfarer had.

“In his book, Hodges claims that was blackballed from the NBA in the early 1990s for using his platform to stand up for justice and was unable to find another team after he was cut from the Bulls, in part, he says because he criticized fellow Black athletes who ‘failed to use their considerable wealth and influence to assist the poor and disenfranchised,'” White detailed. “When the Chicago Bulls were invited to The White House in 1992 after their championship win, a dashiki-clad Hodges delivered a hand-written letter to President George H. W. Bush demanding that he do more to address racism and economic inequality.

“There were early disagreements about the creative path for the documentary,” White added. “Hodges believes some of this involved making his story more ‘palatable’ for the NBA, a claim that Wayfarer denies.”

Hodges said that he hoped for Jivi Singh to direct the documentary, which was part of the conflict that eventually resulted in the project being shelved.

“When I met Jivi, I realized he wanted to do justice to my book [with] an accurate portrayal of the timeframe that the material covered,” Hodges said, per White. “However, Wayfarer’s involvement [started] a creative debate about framing Craig Hodges in a palatable way that the NBA would accept, which isn’t the essence of my book. Wayfarer never seemed interested in that version of the story. Justin Baldoni was definitely interested in virtue signaling and piggy-backing off the hype of The Last Dance, but a lot less interested in the true weight of responsibility that came with accurately depicting the realities of being a Black man in America.”

Hodges was a member of the Chicago Bulls’ first two NBA Championship teams of the 1990s. He was waived by the Bulls after the 1991-92 season and never played in the NBA again. Hodges also claimed three NBA three-point contest wins, winning every year from 1990-92. While he was not with a team in 1993, he did participate in the three-point contest as a free agent.

[Deadline, Photo Credit: Vlad TV on YouTube]