The Michael Jackson Biopic Spent Millions Erasing Controversies

By TeeJay Small
| Published 17 seconds ago

When I first heard that a Michael Jackson biopic was in the works, I just knew the production was going to be a train wreck in some way. From the king of pop‘s traumatic upbringing, to his child abuse scandal, to his outspoken support of a free Palestinian state, so much of Michael’s life is effectively unfilmable and unmarketable to the Hollywood machine.

According to the trades, the Michael film was recently overhauled in post-production, with over $15 million spent on reshoots. The goal of these reshoots: restructure the entire story to completely eliminate any mention of Jackson’s abuse allegations, effectively stripping the story of one of its most important details.

Ignoring Important Allegation Arc

As the report outlines, the Michael script was originally a frame narrative with the child abuse scandal hanging over the entire story. The movie was designed to open with Michael Jackson facing intense scrutiny in 1993 when the allegations first became public. Then, as the film highlights different significant moments in the singer’s life, we flash back and forth to the 21st century, concluding with a long sequence about how the allegations impacted Michael’s final years.

After principal photography had wrapped on Michael, a producer realized that there were legal issues preventing the production from moving forward with this depiction. Specifically, one of Jackson’s accusers has refused to allow the movie to mention him in any way, shape, or form.

Personally, I suspect there were many factors behind the decision to strip the film of this controversial subject matter, since Jackson’s estate is a key money maker for numerous people and businesses. Jackson’s death has also been subjected to an endless number of conspiracy theories, so the production would be facing a major uphill battle by depicting those years at all.

The Full Story Cannot Be Told

Instead of highlighting Michael Jackson’s greatest controversy, Michael will center primarily on the pop icon’s lasting clash with his abusive father, Joe, played by Euphoria‘s Colman Domingo. Inside reports suggest that the final cut of the film will now follow a fairly straightforward linear path, concluding with Jackson’s career-defining Bad world tour. Execs at Lionsgate seem to believe that a third of the footage left on the cutting room floor could be repurposed if they ever decide to make a sequel, but doing so would obviously open Pandora’s box once more.

Beyond the scrapped footage and the $15 million worth of reshoots, the production of Michael has raised a lot of eyebrows. According to those same reports from the trades, Michael’s sister and fellow performer of stage and song, Janet Jackson, will not be depicted at all. To see what ends up on screen, we’ll have to wait until April 24, when Michael hits theaters across the country.