'Making a Murderer' News: Filmmakers Laura Ricciardi & Moira Demos Talk 'Unfair' Criticism [VIDEO]
The filmmakers behind Making a Murderer have responded to the rampant backlash from those claiming the Netflix series is biased.
Ever since the first season of Making a Murderer dropped last December, there has been criticism from Wisconsin natives and others that the show simply did not tell the whole story. The first season mostly follows Steven Avery's defense team, Dean Strang and Jerome Buting, as they work to prove his innocence in the 2005 murder of photographer Teresa Halbach.
Since the series uses them and Avery's family as the entry points into this story, it arguably casts the prosecution and the Manitowoc justice department as the villains. But filmmakers Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos are fighting back against criticisms of bias - which continues even to this day.
Ricciardi and Demos spoke with Deadline recently about their side of the story when it comes to accusations of leaving out parts of the story.
"There are people who have arguments today about whether or not we left out particular pieces of evidence. I have so many thoughts about that. One is the series was not about taking sides, essentially, in terms of how that case would play out. It wasn't about arguing the evidence," Ricciardi explained. "We were trying to show that each side had their own theories and each side was trying to demonstrate that they had evidence. It was about let's take the state's best evidence and the defense's best arguments and include those. But we certainly couldn't include everything, and we certainly didn't leave out anything of real significance. So there's that."
Ricciardi went on to explain how they "cast the widest net" to get every side of the story, including the judge, the jury, the prosecution and Halbach's family, but none of them wanted to be involved.
"Some of our most vocal critics are people who chose not to participate in the series. So it's a little difficult now to hear them complaining about objectivity or bias when they had an opportunity to speak then and chose not to," Ricciardi stated, noting that such criticism from them is "unfair."
The filmmakers are now working on season 2 of Making a Murderer, which will continue to follow Avery's case and his new attorney, Kathleen Zellner.
Making a Murderer season 2 does not yet have a specific release date.
