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A Barry Bonds documentary is currently in production, HBO and Words + Pictures announced Wednesday. Here’s what you need to know:

• Bonds, 58, set the all-time single-season home runs record with 73 in 2001 and owns the all-time career home runs record (762). He is the only MLB player to ever hit more than 500 home runs and also steal more than 500 bases (514).
• Bonds is recognized as both one of the best baseball players ever and one of the most controversial figures in sports, due to his role in the sport’s steroid scandal. He was never inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame.
• The untitled film is being directed by Keith McQuirter (“By Whatever Means Necessary: The Times of Godfather of Harlem”) and executive produced by Oscar winner Ezra Edelman (“O.J.: Made in America”), Connor Schell and Libby Geist (creators of the Emmy-winning ESPN series “30 for 30” and executive producers of “The Last Dance.”)
• The release date has yet to be announced.

What they’re saying

HBO and Words + Pictures said in a statement Wednesday they are “currently in production on a documentary chronicling Barry Bonds, one of the greatest talents in the history of baseball, and one of the most compelling and polarizing figures in all of sports.”

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They added: “The filmmakers will include a diverse cast of influential figures from Barry Bonds’ life and career, and the opportunity for Bonds to actively participate and share his firsthand experiences remains available.”

The Athletic’s instant analysis:

Expectations for the film

This documentary has a chance to be exceptionally good. Here’s why: Edelman was the visionary behind the best sports documentary ever produced by an American sports network — the Oscar-winning “O.J.: Made in America” — and Schell and Geist have a ton of quality work on their resume as longtime ESPN Films executives. McQuirter has his own exceptional C.V. as well.

Bonds is a polarizing and historical figure — and that usually creates compelling storytelling. Given the subject and the filmmakers, I think this turns out to be a must-watch upon premiere. — Deitsch

Will Bonds be part of the documentary?

The last line of this news release is what I find most interesting: “The opportunity for Bonds to actively participate and share his firsthand experiences remains available.” That tells me this isn’t going to be a repeat of “Bonds On Bonds,” the sycophantic, poorly received (and sparsely watched) ESPN documentary series in 2006 that lasted 10 episodes before the network and Tollin/Robbins production company pulled the plug on the project while citing “creative control” issues with Bonds and his representatives.

If this HBO documentary takes a more even-handed view and is anything like “The Last Dance,” there’s a lot of material to mine. As character studies go, Bonds is as complicated as it gets. He can be gracious, charming and introspective one moment, full of bluster and wounded pride the next. He wasn’t the easiest fit for a media environment that clings to a hero-villain duality. Do we cast a star athlete as a hero and overlook his less appealing traits and actions? Or do we cast them as a villain and reduce what might be a complicated personality down to a narrative trope? Then there’s this: Now that we have a fuller context of baseball’s steroid era, should we feel any differently about Bonds now than we did then? — Baggarly

Required reading

(Photo: Brian Bahr / Allsport)

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