A new feature documentary on the groundbreaking career of Joan Rivers is currently in production and slated for release in 2026. The film, which is being made in collaboration with Rivers’ daughter Melissa Rivers, promises to be the most comprehensive portrait yet of the late-night legend.
The still-untitled project will draw from Rivers’ personal archive, including newly unearthed home videos and hundreds of hours of previously unreleased comedy recordings and audio tapes.
As first reported by Deadline, the documentary is being co-directed by Colette Camden (Lucan) and Chris King, the Oscar-winning editor behind Amy and Senna.
The film follows the 2010 documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, in which Rivers herself participated, and the recent NBC special Joan Rivers: A Dead Funny All-Star Tribute. Rivers’ trailblazing life and career have also inspired fictional portrayals, including Rachel Brosnahan’s Midge Maisel in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Jean Smart’s Deborah Vance in Hacks.
“Now feels like the right time to look at why my mother’s voice still resonates today, and, more importantly, how that very distinctive voice came to be,” Melissa Rivers said in a statement. “Hers is not only a story of a trailblazer but of a real woman trying to navigate a life of conflicting desires, and how that shaped her hilarious view of the world.”
Of course, the Joan Rivers story is inherently a late-night story. Her rise to being Johnny Carson’s permanent guest host on The Tonight Show marked a historic breakthrough: it was the first time a woman had earned such a prominent role in late-night TV.
But her decision to launch The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers on the fledgling FOX network in 1986—after sensing NBC would not offer her Carson’s chair—came at a high personal and professional cost. The move severed her relationship with Carson, who had been both her mentor and champion, and ended her long-running association with NBC. It was only seven months before her death in 2014 that she was invited back—by Jimmy Fallon—to the show that had made her a comedy superstar.
I really miss Joan. She helped me deal with more than one tragedy in my life. She was such a good example of how to survive and forge ahead. That, and nobody could make me laugh like she could. I’m looking forward to the documentary!
she was doing just fine until that fatefull moment she slipped up and told the truth to a questioning reporter.
” gay president (O), and tranny first “lady”….dead shortly after…hmmmm?