As fans sparred with the Prince estate, word came of a jukebox musical film

A Broadway musical of “Purple Rain” apparently isn’t enough to introduce Prince to new generations. Get ready for a jukebox musical movie.

The film will be helmed by Oscar-nominated director/producer Ryan Coogler of “Sinners” and “Black Panther” fame for Universal Pictures, Londell McMillan of Prince Legacy LLC announced Saturday during Prince Celebration 2025, an annual fan convention.

He didn’t say much other than Coogler’s wife, producer Zinzi Coogler, will also be involved.

Despite controversies over posthumous projects and complaints from fans desiring more content, the Prince estate is moving along faster than ever. That’s the impression officials gave Saturday at the Lofton Hotel in Minneapolis as part of the four-day fan convention of panels, concert films and live concerts in downtown Minneapolis and Paisley Park in Chanhassen.

Also in the pipeline are a Prince immersive exhibit, a boxed set of 1985’s “Around the World in a Day,” and vinyl releases of the CD-only “Hit and Run” (both Phase One and Phase Two, his final releases in 2015 before he died the following year).

Furthermore, the estate is working on a documentary to replace the controversial nine-hour authorized Netflix series by Oscar-winning director Ezra Edelman that the estate quashed.

“I say cryptic things,” the oft-criticized McMillan told the audience of nearly 600. “Do you really want to know why we stopped Netflix? You will not disrespect Prince on my watch.”

Dissing the doc for not discussing Prince’s creative process and instead filling it with disparaging comments from former employees and lovers, McMillan acknowledged that “Prince needs controversy but it’s gotta be truthful.”

There was a lot of controversy during Saturday’s 90-minute panel, which was part announcements, part Q&A and part focus group (fans apparently don’t want Prince TikTok videos).

The panelists were McMillan, Charles Spicer and Prince’s nephew Johnny Nelson of Prince Legacy LLC, and Zach Hochkeppel, a marketing vice president from Sony Music which owns the distribution rights to about half of Prince’s catalog.

Hochkeppel, who also works with the catalogs of Bob Dylan and Miles Davis, said Prince has way more unreleased material than any artist and that his estate is less “dictatorial” than others he’s dealt with.

Only 45% of the material in Prince’s vault has been archived and digitized, McMillan said. Spicer added that it’s necessary and time consuming to convert music and video from old formats like 8-track, cassettes and videotape to modern technology.

There have been fewer posthumous musical releases — three albums and four boxed sets — partly because, McMillan said, the appropriate video footage to accompany them has been unavailable since Netflix had first access to them. That arrangement ended last year.

Meanwhile, the estate is working on its own documentary with “an Academy award-winning director” whom McMillan would not name yet. But he said it’s neither Spike Lee nor Coogler.

The stars of the “Purple Rain” musical, which opens in October in Minneapolis, have yet to be announced.

McMillan said the show has gone through two drafts, with the second one being experimental, and the creatives hewing more toward the original concept as an adaptation of the movie. Rehearsals for the musical produced by Orin Wolf are expected to start in August at the State Theatre in Minneapolis.

After panel moderator Reg Chapman of WCCO TV asked several questions, fans got their turn.

Calling herself the youngest fan at Prince Celebration, 22-year-old Nina Massenberg of St. Louis asked why not let Prince’s music be sampled by hip-hop artists in order to introduce him to Gen Z. McMillan responded with a story about Prince listening to a heavily sampled Notorious B.I.G. song and responding that he’d already heard the original of the sample and why not play instruments?

McMillan welcomed the face-to-face interaction with fams, as Prince preferred to call them.

“I’d rather there be boisterous fans, than not,” McMillan told the audience, which can be more vociferous on social media than in person. “I’ll take the blows.”

McMillan and the estate expressed interest in tapping this community of fans as partners to help with their expertise in various areas and to become global ambassadors for Prince.

Fans cherished the dialogue.

“It’s important that they commented on the complexities around releasing stuff,” said Rob Staples of London, who runs the Purple Stream Facebook page. “It was an honest and brave statement.”

Sisters Ellece McKinley and Elleatrice Thompson, who have attended all the previous posthumous Celebrations, were encouraged.

“I heard from Londell; I appreciate that,” said McKinley of Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

“It’s a good start getting fans involved,” said Thompson of New York City.

After the panel, McMillan told the Minnesota Star Tribune that the discussion was “surprisingly superb and appreciated.” He pointed out that next year is the 10th anniversary of Prince’s passing.

“We’ll do big things,” he promised.