{"id":622008,"date":"2026-05-04T01:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T01:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/622008\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T01:04:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T01:04:12","slug":"spike-lee-criticises-the-michael-critics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/622008\/","title":{"rendered":"Spike Lee Criticises The “Michael” Critics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Lionsgate, UPI<\/p>\n

Filmmaker Spike Lee has defended the recent Michael Jackson biopic \u201cMichael\u201d in the wake of the harsh critical reviews for the movie that opened the other week.<\/p>\n

Speaking with CNN<\/a>, Lee says he\u2019s seen the film twice and \u201cloved it\u201d and says a big problem with much of the criticism about the film is that it\u2019s misplaced.<\/p>\n

The theatrical cut of the film itself ends in 1988, five years before the first allegation of child sexual abuse was leveled in 1993.<\/p>\n

That said, the movie also famously underwent a major (and expensive) overhaul in production. As a result, it lost a bunch of the third act and the opening, all of which dealt with the controversy.<\/p>\n

Reviews of the film have heavily criticised the way the movie avoids the scandal in any way, shape or form. Lee says that\u2019s the issue, as reviewers should be reviewing the film in front of them:<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst of all, if you\u2019re a movie critic, and you\u2019re complaining about the stuff\u2014 all this other stuff\u2014 but the movie ends at \u201888. The stuff you\u2019re talking about, accusations, happen [later].<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re critiquing the film on something that you want in, but it doesn\u2019t work in the timeline of the film. But people showed up. Worldwide, people showed their love.<\/p>\n

I miss Mike. I miss Prince. I mean, these are my brothers. I worked with both of them. Both beautiful, beautiful people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talk of a second film has been out there, one that would deal with the scandal front and center, but whether it will happen isn\u2019t confirmed as yet. The film has already pulled in $424 million globally after its second weekend.<\/p>\n

Lee directed Jackson\u2019s 1996 music video \u201cThey Don\u2019t Care About Us\u201d and two docos on the man \u2013 2012\u2019s \u201cBad 25\u201d and 2016\u2019s \u201cMichael Jackson\u2019s Journey from Motown to Off the Wall\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lionsgate, UPI Filmmaker Spike Lee has defended the recent Michael Jackson biopic \u201cMichael\u201d in the wake of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[137872,88,206],"class_list":["post-622008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-bigslider","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622008","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=622008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}