From Mark Binelli‘s “The Rise and Fall and Rise of Michael Jackson,” a N.Y. Times Magazine piece posted on 4.14.26:
“For the Michael Jackson estate, leaning into the warts-and-all approach would require a wholesale refutation of the abuse allegations. Graham King and Antoine Fuqua‘s Michael (Lionsgate, 4.24) avoids the issue entirely by embracing the iconic version of Jackson and ignoring the unsettling later stage of his career.
“In trailers and footage of the film that have been released, Jaafar Jackson moonwalks into an uncanny valley of indisputably glorious pop-culture events — the ‘Motown 25’ special, the videos for ‘Thriller’ and ‘Beat It,’ the recording of that indelible high-pitched woooo 15 seconds into ‘Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough’ — and maybe here the gulf opened by the simulacrum will subconsciously comfort viewers, making it possible to enjoy those moments without the queasy feelings stirred by their actual creator.
“Mark Anthony Neal, a professor at Duke University who teaches a class on Jackson, has noticed that students in recent years have been more focused on ‘the Michael Jackson who was the subject of a documentary about pedophilia, the Michael Jackson who has done something to his face and who feels to some of them anti-Black.’ He’s curious to see how Michael will be received ‘specifically in a Black cultural lens: post-Bill Cosby, post-R. Kelly, post-Sean Combs.’
“With so much on the line, it is perhaps unsurprising that there was something of a circling of the wagons around Michael. The Lionsgate publicist handling the film abruptly ceased all contact regarding this article after an initial email exchange, and King also declined to be interviewed. Last year Jackson estate co-executor John Branca told The Financial Times that he “sensed a wavering” among the first people attached to the movie after the release of Leaving Neverland.”
“He went on: ‘Unless you understand that Michael’s innocent, we can’t have you.’
“The estate has also been back in court in recent months to answer challenges from Jackson’s daughter, Paris, who is objecting to bonus payments of up to $1.75 million to outside law firms, while also demanding greater transparency from the executors and questioning the decision to become so closely entangled with the biopic.
“Paris was blunt in her criticism in a series of Instagram posts last fall. Claiming her notes on an early script draft were ignored, she said: ‘The thing about these biopics — it’s Hollywood. it’s fantasy land, it’s not real.” She crumpled her face and mimed adjusting a knob with her finger. ‘The narrative is being controlled, and there’s a lot of inaccuracy and there’s a lot of just full-blown lies, and at the end of the day, that doesn’t really fly with me. I don’t really like dishonesty. I spoke up, I wasn’t heard, I [expletive] off.”
“But even she recognized the likely unstoppability of the movie, given the nature of her father’s fame. ‘A big reason I haven’t said anything up until this point is because I know a lot of you guys are going to be happy with it,’ she said in another post. ‘The film panders to a very specific section of my dad’s fandom that still lives in the fantasy. And they’re going to be happy with it.”
