{"id":32734,"date":"2025-07-24T03:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T03:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/32734\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T03:01:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T03:01:07","slug":"michael-jackson-biopic-michael-moves-to-april-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/32734\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Jackson Biopic ‘Michael’ Moves to April 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEXCLUSIVE: Lionsgate<\/a> and Universal<\/a>\u2018s Michael<\/a> Jackson biopic Michael is officially moving to Friday, April 24, and that\u2019s a global theatrical release.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the same time, we hear that a second movie about Jackson remains in development. <\/p>\n

\n\tWe told you at CinemaCon there were distribution plans afoot for the feature directed by Antoine Fuqua and produced by Graham King. Michael also will get a release on Imax screens.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe delay with Michael has been twofold, one being its length \u2014 there was a first cut in excess of 3\u00bd hours. There also have been reports that the initial cut of the movie made references to 13-year old Jordan Chandler, who accused Jackson of molestation and who the pop singer settled with for $20M in 1994 with no admission of guilt. While the screenplay by three-time Oscar nominee John Logan was developed, approved by the estate and shot to include Chandler, after production wrapped, it was revealed there was an agreement for him not to be included. Hence the production had to go back and re-approach the material. Jackson\u2019s nephew, Jaafar Jackson, plays the King of Pop<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere aren\u2019t any major studio wide entries on April 24 at this stage, hence a great choice for Lionsgate. Michael will open in the wake of New Line\/Blumhouse\u2019s Lee Cronin\u2019s The Mummy and Amazon MGM Studios\/Miramax\u2019s Liam Neeson pic 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank from director Frankie Shaw on April 17. Michael also will precede the May 1 release of 20th Century Studios\u2019 The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Warner Bros\/Legendary\u2019s Animal Friends. <\/p>\n

\n\tThis is the third time that Michael has moved. The pic\u2019s first release date was April 18<\/a>, 2025, then October 3<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: First Photo From Michael Jackson Biopic \u2018Michael\u2019 Unveiled As King Of Pop\u2019s Nephew Takes The Stage<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tOscar winner King\u2019s previous music biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, won four Oscars<\/a> and grossed over $910M at the worldwide box office.<\/p>\n

\n\tKino Films is releasing Michael in Japan, while Universal has the rest of the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: Lionsgate and Universal\u2018s Michael Jackson biopic Michael is officially moving to Friday, April 24, and that\u2019s a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[88,14968,27354,27355,18504,14497],"class_list":["post-32734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-lionsgate","tag-michael","tag-michael-jackson","tag-release-dates","tag-universal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}