00:00 I'm starting with the man in the mirror,
00:02 and I'm asking him to describe the footage from Michael.
00:05 Come on.
00:08 Isn't that great?
00:09 Hey, guys, it's Sean O'Connell,
00:14 the managing editor at CinemaBlend.
00:15 And as you can tell behind me,
00:17 I am in Las Vegas for CinemaCon 2024,
00:19 where all of the studios bring their presentations
00:22 of upcoming films.
00:23 And at Lionsgate, we learned about a huge musical biopic
00:26 that's coming based on the life of Michael Jackson.
00:29 It looks like it's going to follow the formula
00:31 of most biopics,
00:32 and it comes to us from producer Graham King,
00:35 who had previously worked on "Bohemian Rhapsody."
00:37 Of course, when you touch on Michael Jackson,
00:39 one of the things I found really interesting
00:40 is that Graham King admits
00:42 that there's an incredible amount of material
00:43 for him to discuss as part of the singer-songwriter's life.
00:46 And from the footage that we got to see
00:48 in "Caesars" as part of Michael,
00:50 we do go all the way back to Michael Jackson's roots
00:54 as a young kid,
00:55 and then him actually going out on tour
00:57 to start his musical career with the Jackson 5.
01:00 So we're going to be covering, like I said,
01:02 an incredible amount of material
01:04 in the life of arguably one of the most famous musicians
01:07 on the planet.
01:08 A lot of the footage that we saw
01:09 focused on the timeframe of Michael Jackson's life,
01:11 where he's going to be played by Jafar Jackson,
01:13 and it's Michael Jackson at the time of his greatest hits.
01:16 "Man in the Mirror," "Bad," "The Way You Make Me Feel."
01:20 Again, so many hits that you need to touch on,
01:22 and it seemed like the footage that we saw
01:24 is going to go through a montage of it.
01:26 My biggest concern is how much of the time of the film
01:30 are you going to spend in each of these time periods?
01:33 You could arguably do a Michael Jackson film
01:36 that touches only on the '70s,
01:38 only on the '80s, only on the '90s.
01:40 And what Graham King said from the stage
01:42 that I really want to see what Michael does is,
01:45 he admitted the fact that there is a lot of controversy
01:48 for Michael Jackson's life offstage.
01:49 So while you want to celebrate everything
01:51 that he might've done as an artist onstage,
01:54 how much of the film is going to get into
01:56 some of the truly bizarre stories
01:58 that we heard about Michael Jackson offstage?
02:00 And he claimed the fact that the movie
02:02 is going to get into a lot of it,
02:04 and kind of emphasized that this is going to have to be
02:07 a long movie in order to pull that off.
02:09 There was at least some part of the footage
02:10 that was included that makes me believe
02:12 they are going to get into some of the darker sides
02:13 of Michael Jackson.
02:15 We saw brief shots of him taking pills,
02:17 and there's at least one sequence
02:18 that shows him being rushed off to the hospital on a gurney.
02:22 And we do know that there are different instances
02:25 of Michael Jackson having to go to the hospital
02:27 over the course of his career.
02:28 So I do want to find out what they're going to dwell on,
02:31 what they're going to dig into,
02:32 and which parts of that aspect of his career
02:35 are going to get focused on.
02:37 The footage that we saw was really only
02:38 from half of the shoot,
02:40 because director Antoine Fuqua,
02:41 who you know from "Training Day"
02:43 and plenty of other films that he's done
02:44 with Denzel Washington,
02:45 is only halfway through the shoot.
02:47 Michael's going to come out in 2025.
02:49 It's going to be a big emphasis for Lionsgate
02:51 going into next year.
02:52 I think it's tantalizing to talk about
02:54 doing a musical biopic about Michael Jackson.
02:56 There's plenty of stuff for you to get to.
02:58 The footage, again, to sort of emphasize,
03:00 looked like it's following a bit of a boilerplate
03:03 that comes with doing any kind of musical artist
03:06 for a musical biopic.
03:07 But when it's Michael Jackson,
03:08 it's going to have to be something different.
03:10 The footage had a ton of energy
03:13 and really captured what made Michael Jackson
03:16 unique and special when he was performing live.
03:18 And Jafar Jackson looks like he is nailing
03:20 all of the physical aspects
03:22 that come with performing as Michael Jackson.
03:24 The dance, the very strict choreography
03:27 that comes with being part of Michael Jackson's routine,
03:29 all of that is there.
03:31 I'm just really curious about how much
03:33 that when you get Coleman Domingo
03:34 and you get Nia Long,
03:36 are you going to let them explore
03:37 some of the more complicated aspects
03:38 of the Jackson family
03:40 and of Michael Jackson's life in particular?
03:42 Based on what I saw,
03:42 I really do hope that they go into that route,
03:45 but this should be a warts and all biopic
03:47 if it's going to maybe potentially contend for awards
03:50 the way that a lot of actors
03:51 who go out for musical biopics
03:52 do end up being a part of that conversation.
03:55 Lionsgate ended their panel with Michael,
03:57 so it means it's going to be
03:57 a very important film for them.
03:59 It even came after "Ballerina,"
04:01 which is going to be a big film for them in 2025.
04:03 So we've got Michael circled on our calendar.
04:05 Being a huge Michael Jackson fan myself,
04:07 I'm really curious to see how he's portrayed
04:09 and whether audiences are going to respond to it.
04:11 So be on the lookout for that Michael footage
04:13 if and when it makes its way online.
04:15 We are going to be reporting live from CinemaCon all week,
04:17 so keep it right here on CinemaBlend
04:19 for the latest movie news.
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