Michael Jackson film set to be a controversial hit

A new film about Michael Jackson's extraordinary but troubled life is set to open in cinemas. It's tracking to be very popular – but will it tell the full story?

Bohemian Rhapsody was a troubled production, to put it mildly. The original star, Sacha Baron Cohen, departed and the original director Bryan Singer was fired. But the biopic of Freddie Mercury and Queen went on to make more than $900m (£660m) at the box office and win four Oscars.

Given that success, it seemed logical when the producer of Bohemian Rhapsody, Graham King, revealed in 2019 that he would be making another biopic of a music megastar: Michael Jackson. In short, King was following Queen with the King of Pop.

His new venture, Michael, had one obvious difficulty: Jackson had been accused of child abuse. In 1994, he reached an out-of-court settlement with one of his accusers, Jordan Chandler, and he was acquitted of molesting a 13-year-old boy in a criminal trial in 2005.

Lawyers for the estate of Jackson and its executors, who are among the producers of the biopic, tell the BBC that they "firmly and unequivocally believe in Michael Jackson's innocence, which was unanimously adjudicated by a jury and supported by extensive evidence".

All the same, the allegations remain a part of Jackson's life story, complicating the attempt to turn his life into a nine-figure Hollywood blockbuster. But given current demand for the pop star, it's likely to be a big hit, too. Industry analysts are predicting that Michael will be even bigger than Bohemian Rhapsody.

Universal

If King had any initial doubts about the wisdom of giving Jackson the Bohemian Rhapsody treatment, they may have been allayed by the rise in his popularity since his death of a prescription drug overdose, aged 50, in 2009.

On Spotify, he currently has 64.8 million monthly listeners and 40.5 million followers, making him the streaming service's 27th biggest artist in the world. His life and music are also the basis of a Cirque du Soleil spectacular, Michael Jackson ONE, which has been running in Las Vegas since 2013, and a Tony-winning jukebox show, MJ The Musical, which has been on Broadway since 2022. The biopic would just be the latest addition to the glittering Michael Jackson industry.

It was announced in January 2023 that Michael would be written by John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator) and directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day). It was later confirmed that the starry cast would include Colman Domingo, Miles Teller and Nia Long, and that the lead role would be played by Jackson's own nephew, Jaafar Jackson. And, as mentioned, its producer knows a thing or two about exultant pop biopics. In 2024, a spokesperson for the new film told the BBC in a statement: "From the beginning the Michael Jackson estate put their trust in Graham King, stepping out of the creative process." 

A complicated legacy

So why is Jackson such a hot property, despite the accusations that once tainted his image? "There are several things at work here," Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, pop critic at the Financial Times, tells the BBC. "One is the lack of definitive legal proof [that Jackson committed any crimes]. Another is the branch of public relations dedicated to reputation management or rehabilitation. Jackson is now seen as a victim himself, bullied by his father, warped by fame, dying too young. And finally, most importantly, there's the fact that he's the ultimate pop star – a brilliant vocal stylist, a dancer to rival Fred Astaire, an entertainer with an indelible sense of his own sound and look." 

"Another factor," adds Ed Potton, culture commissioning editor at The Times, "is whether you've seen the Leaving Neverland documentary."

This Emmy-winning four-hour documentary features the testimonies of Wade Robson and James Safechuck, two men who allege that Jackson had sexually abused them when they were children. It was broadcast in two parts on HBO in 2019, just a few months before the announcement that King would be making his biopic.

Universal

In a letter to the BBC, lawyers representing the Jackson estate call Leaving Neverland and its 2025 sequel "one-sided hit-pieces attacking Michael Jackson".

The documentary's director, Dan Reed, tells the BBC that he had read an early draft of the Michael screenplay that "contained many falsehoods, a great many inaccuracies and also just outright lies about the facts of his relationship with Jordan Chandler and Jordan Chandler's parents". Lawyers representing Jackson's estate tell the BBC that because Reed had not seen the finished film, his comments were "irrelevant and misguided". They added: "As the film was years away from completion at the time statements were made, they were false and defamatory speculative assertions". 

The film's revisions and reshoots

The film did indeed take years to complete. The production was delayed by the Sag-Aftra strike in 2023, but things got underway in the early months of 2024. King suggested at the time that the film would address some of the controversy relating to its subject. "Behind the unrelenting scrutiny and the accusations and the grinding media spotlight, [Jackson] was simply a man," the producer said at Las Vegas's CinemaCon in April 2024. "A man who lived a very complicated life. The movie will get into all of it..."

According to a recent article in Variety, the film would certainly "get into" some of it. It "was supposed to explore the impact of the allegations on Jackson's life, with much of its third act devoted to the [Jordan Chandler] scandal", said the article.

But somewhere, the plan was changed, according to articles in The New York Times, Variety, and elsewhere.

In its current form, the film charts Jackson's rise from family-band member to solo superstar, and his escape from the control of his abusive father (Domingo). It climaxes with a triumphal concert from the Bad tour in 1988. Nothing controversial is featured.

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The Hollywood Reporter writes that after shooting was complete, Jackson's estate's lawyers realised that the scandal couldn't be included. When Jackson had settled with Chandler in 1994, one of the conditions was that Chandler couldn't be portrayed or referred to in any film. New scenes were written, and there were 22 days of additional shooting in June 2025. The release date was pushed back from 2025 to 2026, said The Hollywood Reporter.

Variety reported that the reshoots cost between $10m and $15m, with the bill being settled by Jackson's estate. But if the revisions have turned the biopic into a purely positive celebration of its subject, that may come to seem like money well spent.

There is even the possibility that some of the discarded footage will be used in a sequel. A spokesman for the film studio, Lionsgate, told the New York Times that "the unusual circumstances gave us the opportunity to shoot more material for what is effectively a Part One – the making of a king – while preserving the opportunity to tell more story in a subsequent film or films".

Michael is released in cinemas on 22 April in the UK and on 24 April in the US.

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