WANNA BE STARTIN\u2019 SOMETHIN\u2019<\/p>\n
The upcoming Michael Jackson biopic, \u201cMichael,\u201d was intended to reclaim the troubled pop star\u2019s legacy for his fans and make some money for his family.<\/p>\n
The film comes as the Jackson estate has repeatedly denied child abuse accusations against the late star over the years. But a month before \u201cMichael\u201d finally hits theaters, the movie\u2019s producers and co-executors of Jackson\u2019s estate, John Branca and John McClain, are mired in an ugly legal fight with Jackson\u2019s own kids. The estate has been in probate for a stunning 17 years since Jackson died in 2009, leaving behind his three children, Prince, now 29, Paris, 27, and Bigi (formerly Blanket), 24.<\/p>\n
In recent legal filings, Paris Jackson has raised questions about the movie, which underwent costly reshoots in 2025, and said she wants more transparency and timelier accounting from Branca and McClain. Paris had previously distanced<\/a> herself from \u201cMichael,\u201d calling the film \u201csugar-coated\u201d and \u201cdishonest\u201d in her Instagram stories last September.<\/p>\n \u201cMichael,\u201d which is directed by Antoine Fuqua and produced by Graham King (\u201cBohemian Rhapsody\u201d), stars Michael\u2019s nephew Jaafar Jackson, son of Jermaine Jackson, as the pop star, with Colman Domingo as his father and Nia Long as his mother.<\/p>\n \u201cTop Gun: Maverick\u201d star Miles Teller is playing Branca, who was Michael\u2019s on-again, off-again entertainment lawyer while the singer was alive. That casting decision apparently drew added scrutiny from Paris, whose attorneys in November submitted a filing to L.A. Superior Court that accused the estate of becoming \u201cthe vehicle for John Branca to enrich and aggrandize himself, rather than serve the beneficiaries\u2019 best interests and steadfastly preserve her father\u2019s legacy.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cUndoubtedly Mr. Branca considers his story to be central to the Michael Jackson story,\u201d the filing states. \u201cNonetheless, it is unclear how this peculiar and presumably costly casting decision will result in commensurate box office receipts.\u201d<\/p>\n Teller\u2019s appearance in the trailer in a feathered, 1980s-style wig and prosthetic nose caught the eyes of fans<\/a>, but Branca\u2019s role in the story has likely diminished since Teller was cast. After production on \u201cMichael\u201d was underway, producers were forced to remove a storyline<\/a> about an accuser to comply with the terms of a settlement the estate had reached with the child\u2019s family.<\/p>\n The removal of the storyline, which Paris\u2019 filing says may be attributed to \u201cMr. Branca\u2019s lack of experience producing dramatic feature films,\u201d forced producers to alter the third act of the movie, adding to its budget and pushing the release date back by a year.<\/p>\n In a March 19 filing, the estate\u2019s lawyers fired back at Paris, saying that her objections to its management are \u201cwithout merit,\u201d accusing her of \u201cstaging tabloid press photo ops\u201d and \u201cstrutting into hearings.\u201d The filing highlights Branca and McClain\u2019s role in making the estate billions via a concert documentary, Broadway musical and Cirque du Soleil show. \u201cThe Executors recognize that they are, by definition, the \u2018grown-ups\u2019 here,\u201d the filing reads.<\/p>\n Paris has been joined by her siblings in her petition for more transparency and timeliness from the estate, and this week the judge approved a schedule for the estate to submit expenses. The judge allowed Branca and McClain to wait until April 2027 to report their 2025 accounting. Presumably by next year, \u201cMichael,\u201d which Lionsgate is releasing in the U.S., will have earned back those reshoot costs.<\/p>\n Jonathan Steinsapir, an attorney for the estate, told NBC News in a statement: \u201cThe vast majority of her \u2018claims\u2019 have been either approved by her legal team or by the court in prior years\u2019 accounting, but those facts have been routinely ignored by her attorneys. Others are based on false or misleading information.\u201d<\/p>\n Paris \u201chas already received roughly $65 million in benefits and stands to inherit many hundreds of millions more,\u201d the statement reads. \u201cThis is from an estate that was $500 million in debt and facing bankruptcy at the time of Michael\u2019s death but was turned by the executors into a business generating billions in revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked for comment, a representative for Paris referred NBC News to a March 16 legal filing in which Paris took issue with that number.<\/p>\n The estate \u201cdid not provide any calculations to Paris or the Court of how they arrived at that figure, which Paris disputes as outright false and which Executors have refused to substantiate,\u201d the filing reads. It also states that executors had received total compensation of $148,252,657 from the estate through the end of 2021, \u201cwhich dwarfs any amount distributed to Paris or her siblings.\u201d<\/p>\n THE WRONG REASONS<\/p>\n As the Taylor Frankie Paul \u201cBachelorette\u201d fiasco wound into its second week, one of the lingering questions has been what the scratched season means for the 22 men who paused their lives for the chance to hold Paul\u2019s final rose.<\/p>\n Last Thursday, after ABC made its decision to pull the season, all of the contestants except presumed winner Doug Mason met with producers and attorneys, a source with knowledge of the matter told my colleague Chloe Melas<\/a>. During the call, the producers reminded the contestants that they are bound by their one-year contracts.<\/p>\n On Saturday, TMZ reported that five of the contestants are considering suing<\/a> ABC and Warner Bros. Television for their loss of potential income and for creating an unsafe working environment.<\/p>\n Curious about what kind of case the men might have, I reached out to former \u201cBachelor\u201d producer Michael Carroll, who worked on nine seasons of the dating show.<\/p>\n \u201cThe contracts for \u2018The Bachelor\u2019 are extensively on the side of the producer,\u201d Carroll told me. \u201cThe cast member is signing their life away.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Carroll, the contract specifically says producers are under no obligation to investigate the background, mental health capacity or history of any character on the show. And producers are also under no obligation to air the footage that is captured.<\/p>\n \u201cAs viewers, we\u2019re automatically going to think about, \u2018Oh, the poor cast\u2019\u201d Carroll said. \u201cUnfortunately for these guys, they did take a lot of time out of their life and they have big expectations about what this will bring them, maybe lots of followers on social media and all the things that come with being part of the Bachelor Nation. I feel bad for them. But it\u2019s just part of the gig. Entertainment\u2019s a rough business.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBachelor\u201d alumna Kelley Flanagan, an attorney who was eliminated in Week 7 of Peter Weber\u2019s season, which aired in 2020, was even firmer about the position the men are in.<\/p>\n \u201cThey own you,\u201d Flanagan told Melas over Zoom when discussing her \u201cBachelor\u201d contract. \u201cSo guys going on and saying, \u2018Hey, we didn\u2019t get an opportunity.\u2019 They\u2019re not guaranteed to give you that opportunity. I\u2019m sorry, but you just have to suck it up.\u201d<\/p>\n STATES STRIKE BACK<\/p>\n NBC News senior reporter Daniel Arkin<\/a> has been following the legal pushback to two media megadeals. Here\u2019s his dispatch:<\/p>\n The day Netflix abruptly backed out of the fight for Warner Bros. Discovery, ceding the bidding war to Paramount Skydance, California Attorney General Rob Bonta did not mince words. \u201cParamount\/Warner Bros. is not a done deal,\u201d Bonta posted on X<\/a>, adding that his office had an \u201copen investigation\u201d into the deal.<\/p>\n Bonta now has company in his antitrust crusade. I confirmed yesterday that Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser\u2019s office is also probing the PSKY-WBD tie-up. In an email, a spokesman for Weiser\u2019s office said Colorado is part of a \u201cmultistate group\u201d looking into the deal. We don\u2019t yet know which other states are involved.<\/p>\n It\u2019s clear that attorneys general in some Democratic-leaning states are eager to flex their muscles amid the merger mania sweeping the entertainment and media sector. Eight attorneys general, including Bonta and Weiser, recently sued to block TV station owner Nexstar\u2019s $6.2 billion acquisition of rival company Tegna after that deal was blessed by the FCC and the Justice Department.<\/p>\n Elsewhere. a group of 26 states, plus Washington, D.C., objected to the Justice Department\u2019s settlement with Live Nation in a federal suit accusing the company of monopolizing the live entertainment industry. The states have vowed to keep the suit going.<\/p>\n ACTUAL INTELLIGENCE<\/p>\n The news that OpenAI is shutting down<\/a> its Sora video-creation app took Hollywood by surprise this week, including Disney, which abruptly dissolved the $1 billion deal<\/a> it forged with the Sam Altman-led company in December.<\/p>\n Just keeping up with the dizzying pace of change in AI is a full-time job. For those of us who already have a nine-to-five and are looking for some deeper understanding, filmmakers Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell offer a compelling and slop-free option: their movie<\/a>, \u201cThe AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist,\u201d which hits theaters this week.<\/p>\n The film features Roher, who won an Oscar for his 2022 doc about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, interviewing AI titans like Altman, Anthropic\u2019s Daniela and Dario Amodei and Google DeepMind\u2019s Demis Hassabis.<\/p>\n While the captains of industry answer Roher\u2019s big questions about an AI-led future, the storyline relies on a decidedly human idea \u2014 Roher\u2019s anxiety about that future while awaiting the birth of his first child.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat kind of world is my son going to grow up in?\u201d Roher asked when I interviewed him and Tyrell at the Sundance Film Festival<\/a> in January. \u201cThat was the way to frame this gargantuan, scary thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Much of the movie is told through handcrafted illustration and stop-motion animation, all of it rooted in Roher\u2019s own obsessive art-making habit. During our interview, Roher, who has attention-deficit disorder and draws or paints to help him focus, was painting Tyrell and me in a notebook using a small watercolor set. (See the illustration above.)<\/p>\n Roher said he found being in front of the camera for the doc uncomfortable. \u201cI didn\u2019t like the concept of being the Michael Moore of the movie,\u201d he said. \u201cI hate movies that do that.\u201d<\/p>\n But the end result is a film that, well, you couldn\u2019t just generate with a prompt on Sora.<\/p>\n THE HYPE<\/p>\n Why get your recommendations from an algorithm when you could get them from one of TV\u2019s great comedy writers and a millennial reality TV legend\/fashion icon.<\/p>\n Michael Patrick King, whose HBO show \u201cThe Comeback\u201d is now airing its third season on HBO, is watching \u201cThe Pitt\u201d because \u201cit\u2019s thrilling to be introduced to so many new and exciting actors who are \u2018killing\u2019 it \u2026 and an occasional patient.\u201d<\/p>\n Lauren Conrad of \u201cLaguna Beach\u201d and \u201cThe Hills\u201d fame, told my colleague Saba Hamedy<\/a> that she\u2019s been watching FX\/Hulu\u2019s \u201cLove Story\u201d \u201cfor the fashion.\u201d The millennial icon returns to our TVs with Roku\u2019s \u201cThe Reunion: Laguna Beach,\u201d which streams on April 10.<\/p>\n THE DIALOGUE<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not your job to keep them open. It\u2019s our job to make things that make it worth you coming out.\u201d\u2014Actor Ryan Gosling, speaking to moviegoers about theaters during a surprise appearance at a New York theater<\/a> on the opening night of \u201cProject Hail Mary.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was a liability. I align with Bobby Kennedy, which is aligning with MAGA. \u2026 I triple down on it because I\u2019m like, I\u2019m so sick of people telling me who I should be.\u201d \u2014Former Pussycat Doll Jessica Sutta, in a recent interview with \u201cThe Maverick Approach\u201d podcast<\/a>, on why she thinks she was not asked to return for the group\u2019s PCD Forever tour.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of hate online. There\u2019s a lot of abuse of how I look, and it\u2019s kind of past the point of \u2014 you know, \u2018Everyone goes through that.\u2019 And everyone does, but it\u2019s made me shy away. It\u2019s made me really go inside myself, not want to attend places, not want to go outside.\u201d\u2014Actor Barry Keoghan, in an interview with SiriusXM\u2019s Hits 1<\/a>, on navigating fame.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a wrap \u2014 see you next week!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome back to ON THE LOT. In today\u2019s edition: Paris Jackson\u2019s fight with the producers of the Michael…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":["post-549179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549179","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=549179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Exterior](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/260323-Taylor-Frankie-Paul-the-Bachelorette-vsb-1959-4ba63e.jpg\")
Exterior view of The Bachelorette season 22 billboard starring Taylor Frankie Paul is seen on March 19, 2026 in Los Angeles.HIGHFIVE\/Bauer-Griffin \/ GC Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/260327-RK-director-sketch-jg-b0bc3c.jpg\")
A drawing Daniel Roher did in his notebook during our interview.Courtesy Rebecca Keegan<\/p>\n