This story contains spoilers for Michael, including discussion of the ending.
Michael, director Antoine Fuqua’s just-released Michael Jackson biopic, is already the most divisive movie of the year. Jackson’s detractors have ripped it as a sanitized account of the King of Pop’s reign, while his diehard fans are celebrating their chance to honor the man and his music without revisiting accusations of misconduct that the singer and his estate have long denied. Only one of these groups will be thrilled with Michael’s final scene and its concluding message.
The dramatic tension throughout Michael stems from Jackson (played by Michael’s nephew Jaafar Jackson) struggling to break free of the control of his father Joe (Colman Domingo). Despite Michael’s solo success, Joe is insistent that his son continue as a member of the family group, the Jackson 5. Michael begrudgingly agrees to take part in 1984’s Victory Tour, then surprises Joe and his brothers during the tour’s final U.S. date by announcing that this will be the final time that the Jacksons perform together.
The film then jumps ahead to 1988, during Michael’s Bad Tour. He takes the stage at London’s Wembley Stadium, where he played to 504,000 people over the course of seven sold-out nights, setting a Guinness record for concert attendance that stands to this day. Then the screen cuts to black, and just before the credits roll, a title card that reads “His Story Continues” appears onscreen.
That’s right—Michael essentially ends the way a superhero film might, or the way so many James Bond movies have, with the promise of further adventures to come. Unlike 007, Thor, or Captain America, of course, the part of Michael Jackson’s story not covered in Michael is rife with controversy, and its dramatic beats don’t necessarily scream “uplifting sequel.”
This was not always how the film was supposed to end. As originally shot, Michael was to open in 1993 with police raiding Jackson’s Neverland Ranch after Jackson was accused of molesting then-13-year-old Jordan Chandler. The criminal investigation was eventually closed after Jackson reached a financial settlement with the Chandler family, and Jackson continued to deny the allegations. Jackson would later be acquitted in 2005 of a separate molestation accusation; he was never convicted of any crime prior to his death in 2009.
The third act of Michael initially focused on the Chandler suit and how Jackson’s life was impacted by the controversy. Filming had been completed before it was discovered that as part of Jackson’s settlement with the Chandlers, the Jackson estate had agreed to never depict or mention Chandler or the lawsuit in a film.
“It was pretty crazy and surreal,” producer Graham King told The Wall Street Journal. “I’ve never experienced that where you finish a film and then find out you didn’t have the legal rights to tell that story.”
King, Fuqua, and writer John Logan went back to the drawing board. Michael’s release was delayed a year. And the Jackson estate paid for 22 days of additional photography to execute the reworked story.
According to Lionsgate boss Adam Fogelson, the changes allowed them to cut Michael’s running time down from three-plus hours to two hours and change.
“This first movie stops well short of telling the full story of Michael Jackson,” Fogelson said to The Hollywood Reporter. “There is a lot of amazing music in this catalog that this part of the story doesn’t get to. So we have said that there is room for another film, and I can tell you that the filmmaking team has been hard at work being ready for a second film, and when the right moment comes, we would be excited to announce that that is definitively happening.”
As for what Jackson’s story continuing would actually look like, King has reportedly told executives that they’d highlight later Jackson albums, the construction of Neverland Ranch, and “his love of animals.” For his part, Fuqua has teased the inclusion of Jackson’s legendary Super Bowl halftime performance and “the whole Neverland of it all.”
So there you have it: Michael Jackson will return, in a movie that is somehow about “the whole Neverland of it all” in an estate-approved way, but also how Michael bought a zoo. Sounds like a tough script to crack, but based on the early buzz and box-office projections for Michael, we can probably still expect a quick greenlight for 2 Michael 2 Bad.
