Grateful Dead Sundance Documentary ‘Long Strange Trip’ Acquired By Amazon

Ahead of its world premiere at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival, Amazon Studios has acquired Long Strange Trip, a four-hour documentary about the Grateful Dead from director Amir Bar-Lev (The Tillman Story) and executive producer Martin Scorsese (Silence). Long Strange Trip will debut May 26 on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S. and UK as a six part documentary, with additional territories to be announced.

With never-before-seen footage and candid interviews, the docu probes the creative forces, subversive ambitions, and interpersonal dynamics that drove the Grateful Dead over a 30-year odyssey. Director Bar-Lev unearths the untold history of the Dead and the freewheeling psychedelic subculture that sprouted up around it, while providing poignant insight into the psyche of late lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, who disdained leadership of the increasingly sprawling collective organization that kept the show on the road.

Long Strange Trip is produced by Eric Eisner (Hamlet 2), Nick Koskoff (Bad Hurt), and Alex Blavatnik (For the Love of Spock) who also financed the project. Additional producers include Ken Dornstein (My Brother’s Bomber) and Justin Kreutzmann (The Who: Fragments). Executive producers in addition to Scorsese are Emma Tillinger Koskoff (Silence), Rick Yorn (Wolf of Wall Street), Andrew Heller, Sanford Heller, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Thomas J. Mangan IV (Somewhere Tonight), and Alicia Sams (By The People: The Election of Barack Obama).

The deal was negotiated by WME Global on behalf of the filmmakers.