{"id":264305,"date":"2026-02-02T19:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T19:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/264305\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T19:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T19:31:09","slug":"what-are-we-not-going-to-see-in-king-of-pop-biopic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/264305\/","title":{"rendered":"What Are We Not Going to See in King of Pop Biopic?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s something notable: new marketing materials for Antoine Fuqua<\/a>\u2018s long-awaited Michael<\/a> Jackson film<\/a> (just \u201cMichael\u201d<\/a>) are playing up a specific time frame. Phrases like \u201cearly solo career\u201d and \u201cthis is where his story begins\u201d stand out in both the film\u2019s latest trailer and a brand-new poster.<\/p>\n

On one hand, focusing on a more compact period of time in an iconic artist\u2019s life is smart, simply for the sake of running time. On the other, well, for someone like Jackson, it offers the chance to skirt around the darker elements of his personal life. What aren\u2019t we going to see in \u201cMichael\u201d? Well, considering it stars his own nephew Jaafar Jackson and is leaning so hard into the early stuff, we hazard to guess: quite a bit.<\/p>\n

\"Portrait<\/a> \""The<\/a> <\/p>\n

Per the film\u2019s official synopsis, it \u201cis the cinematic portrayal of the life and legacy of one of the most influential artists the world has ever known. The film tells the story of Michael Jackson<\/a>\u2019s life beyond the music, tracing his journey from the discovery of his extraordinary talent as the lead of the Jackson Five, to the visionary artist whose creative ambition fueled a relentless pursuit to become the biggest entertainer in the world. Highlighting both his life off-stage and some of the most iconic performances from his early solo career, the film gives audiences a front-row seat to Michael Jackson as never before. This is where his story begins.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film also stars Nia Long, Laura Harrier, Juliano Valdi, Miles Teller, and Colman Domingo, all of whom pop in its latest trailer (Domingo and Long, as Michael\u2019s conflicted parents, really shine).<\/p>\n

As IndieWire previously reported<\/a>, the film has already endured a massive legal snafu involving a big chunk of the movie, which reportedly centered on a\u00a0child molestation accuser\u2019s lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0that the Jackson estate was not allowed to depict on film,\u00a0forced filmmakers to completely reshoot and retool parts of the film, leading to it to be delayed for months indefinitely. <\/p>\n

Footage from the movie was even confidently teased at CinemaCon back in 2024 but was completely absent this past spring as the movie underwent its reshoots. That wait is over now, and this film has the chance to be one of the bigger box office smashes of 2026.<\/p>\n

Lionsgate will release \u201cMichael\u201d in theaters (including IMAX) on Friday, April 24.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s something notable: new marketing materials for Antoine Fuqua\u2018s long-awaited Michael Jackson film (just \u201cMichael\u201d) are playing up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[85303,156,593,5494,6455,409,111,139,69,28104],"class_list":{"0":"post-264305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-antoine-fuqua","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-film","11":"tag-michael","12":"tag-michael-jackson","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-trailers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}