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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n Michael, Antoine Fuqua\u2019s dazzling but slight film on the life of the divisive self-proclaimed King of Pop Michael Jackson, has dominated the worldwide box office<\/a> over the past week or so. And, given how much money it has made, and how much more it is going to make, the inevitable sequel has been announced<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to see why the film has been a success. It\u2019s extraordinarily entertaining, featuring an electrifying turn by the pop titan\u2019s nephew, Jaafar Jackson, in the title role. The re-creations of several iconic performances (the Don\u2019t Stop \u2019til You Get Enough, Beat It and Thriller videos, the Victory and Bad tours and, perhaps best of all, Billie Jean at Motown 25) might be clumsily strung together by some token narrative about Michael wanting to break free from bad dad Joe, but they are undeniably spectacular.<\/p>\n The film has also provoked debate over the omission of any mention of the child abuse allegations<\/a> against Michael Jackson, most notably in 1993, 2003 and even after his death (in 2009) with the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland. An early draft of the Michael script apparently did address at least the 1993 case but the biopic had to be reworked<\/a> when a clause was discovered from the legal settlement with then-13-year-old accuser Jordan Chandler, which prohibited the film\u2019s makers from any dramatisation of Chandler\u2019s story.<\/p>\n As for a sequel? They should make two.<\/p>\n Related Article The fear some seem to have is the filmmakers have used all the best bits with the first film, but these doubters are sorely mistaken. A first sequel can pick up where Michael left off with, if not Martin Scorsese\u2019s Bad video that starred Wesley Snipes, the sensational \u201930s gangster pastiche of Smooth Criminal, also from the Bad album and directed by the less heralded Colin Chilvers. Jaafar has already said he wants a crack at that and, now he has proved himself as a superstar in his own right, he\u2019d absolutely be back to do it.<\/p>\n Paul McCartney probably won\u2019t authorise his likeness for his fantastic duets with Michael Jackson (The Girl Is Mine and Say Say Say) after Jackson bought the Beatles catalogue from under his nose, and sister Janet wanted no part of Michael (making the ignoring of her very existence in the movie feel suitably odd), so we\u2019re not going to see their Scream collab. But Stevie Wonder sang at Jackson\u2019s funeral, so he might still love him enough to let someone play him for the recording of Just Good Friends.<\/p>\n There are also re-creations waiting to happen of the glorious, ironically colourful Black or White video, a delve into Jackson\u2019s unlikely marriage to Lisa Marie Presley and their You Are Not Alone film clip, and even the pompous, overblown but enormously popular Earth Song. (Again, it\u2019s highly unlikely that they\u2019d portray Jarvis Cocker from Pulp\u2019s heroic stage invasion of Jackson\u2019s distasteful, Christ-wannabe performance at the 1996 Brit awards, but we live in hope.)<\/p>\n And if they do run out of videos to remake, there are always live performances of classics they missed the first time that they can have a crack at. Jackson always liked to dramatically break down in tears on stage during She\u2019s Out of My Life, for example, and there was no room in the first film for, say, PYT or the frankly awesome Man in the Mirror.<\/p>\n What will the narrative be, second time around? Well, it barely mattered for the first movie, so I wouldn\u2019t lose too much sleep over that. Vaguely stringing together the above musical beats has \u201chit sequel\u201d written all over it regardless.<\/p>\n A second sequel, however, would be less crowd-pleasing but more interesting. Here we could get the film the detractors wanted. This wouldn\u2019t be authorised, so the makers wouldn\u2019t get the tunes, but that wouldn\u2019t matter \u2013 the fans would have the first two movies for those, and Jackson\u2019s last proper album, 2001\u2019s Invincible, was rubbish anyway. And so this film\u2019s makers could dive deep into the stuff no one in the family wants to talk about: the child abuse allegations.<\/p>\n Jaafar, being part of the family, probably wouldn\u2019t come back for this one \u2013 but again, that wouldn\u2019t matter because his uncle looked so different by then you could comfortably recast the role. The second sequel could thus have a radically lower budget and take a grittier, indie-style approach.<\/p>\n After the success of Bohemian Rhapsody \u2013 like Michael, also from producer Graham King \u2013 that film\u2019s makers missed a trick not getting Rami Malek back to star in a lower-key, serious, \u201cprestige\u201d sequel on Freddie Mercury\u2019s real final years, leading up to his death. A final, unauthorised film on Michael Jackson could complete an unprecedented trilogy in comparable \u2013 and satisfying \u2013 fashion.<\/p>\n George Palathingal is a senior music writer.<\/p>\n Must-see movies, interviews and all the latest from the world of film delivered to your inbox. Sign up for our Screening Room newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2992e91aec9b5c65637121432ed3c31e053934ef.jpeg\")
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