As Michael crosses $1 billion at the worldwide box office and cements itself as the highest-grossing music biopic in history, Jaafar Jackson is addressing one of the most charged questions surrounding the franchise: will the sequel finally confront the allegations of child sexual abuse that have followed his uncle’s name for three decades?
In a new interview with GQ Middle East, Jaafar, who stars as Michael Jackson in Antoine Fuqua’s biographical film, shared what how he believes the second film will tackle Michael Jackson’s allegations that plagued the latter half of his career.
Jaafar acknowledged that the screenplay is still in development and that he has no real say in its scope or story, but he did share his thoughts on how he thinks the sequel will approach Jackson’s allegations. “I think the second film will give even more insight from his point of view, because at the end of the day, the allegations are always from someone else’s,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “It’s someone else’s story. It’s someone else’s idea of what it is, and it’s mainly driven by an agenda. And that’s really the issue we’ve been having as a family, not having Michael’s voice being heard. I think that’s very, very important, especially in the late years.”
He framed the two-film structure as an opportunity for a deeper, more complete portrait. “This first film focuses on Michael from his roots. So you get that idea of who he was before he had all the success and became the icon that people are familiar with, you understand who he was as a human being first, because at the end of the day, that’s who he was in the ’90s until he passed. He never changed that purity, that sense of always wanting to find the good in other people. And no matter all the stuff he went through, how he was treated, what things were said about him, he never stopped treating people with kindness… even though he was broken, his heart still stayed the same. I hope that this is felt in the second movie.”
The comments come as Michael continues its record-breaking run. The film has officially crossed $1 billion worldwide, becoming the first music biopic and the first biopic in cinema history to cross that threshold. It surpassed Bohemian Rhapsody‘s $911 million lifetime gross to become the highest-grossing music biopic of all time and is Lionsgate’s highest-grossing theatrical release ever. Among its other records: largest global and domestic opening weekend ever for a music biopic, highest-grossing biopic domestically, and the most successful biopic ever in France, surpassing La Vie en Rose.
The path was not without turbulence. Lionsgate was forced into $50 million in reshoots after the Jackson estate identified a problem with John Logan’s original screenplay involving one of Jackson’s accusers, who was never meant to appear in the film. The film ultimately opened to an A- CinemaScore despite a polarized critical reception, holding a 38% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes alongside a 97% audience approval rating. Critics called the narrative sanitized and superficial, while audiences praised Jaafar’s performance and the film’s spectacular musical recreations. Critics also attacked the first film for ending around the 1987 release of Bad, a choice widely seen as a deliberate way to sidestep the controversy, with the first allegation against Jackson surfacing around 1993.
Directed by Antoine Fuqua and produced by Graham King, John Branca and John McClain, Michael stars Jaafar Jackson alongside Colman Domingo, Nia Long, Miles Teller, Laura Harrier, Larenz Tate, Juliano Valdi, KeiLyn Durrel Jones, Liv Symone and Mike Myers. A sequel is currently in development.