Training Day director Antoine Fuqua is set to helm the Michael Jackson film, which will reportedly be titled Michael.
It has been announced that Antoine Fuqua has signed on to helm a Michael Jackson biopic for Lionsgate. Reportedly going under the title of Michael, the film will be written by John Logan who has previously worked on the scripts for films such as Skyfall, Hugo and Gladiator.
Whilst it hasn’t yet been revealed which parts of the singer’s career and life will be in focus, the film is believed to begin with his rise to fame as a child singer and cover his global success as a musical icon.
Of course, the later part of Jackson’s career was blighted by scandal and concerning the arguments surrounding this. We’ve seen documentaries arrive that tell both sides of a story that would plague Jackson until his untimely death in 2009 at the age of 50.
How Fuqua intends to deal with this in his film remains to be seen, but reports suggest that the filmmaker will address the allegations of sexual abuse within the wider story of Jackson’s stellar career. The project is being produced by GK Films’ Graham King who previously oversaw the Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody.
That film largely glossed over some of the more troubling personal issues that the band faced, in favour of a celebratory and euphoric story. Whether Fuqua’s film is headed in that direction remains to be seen, but the involvement of Jackson’s estate gives us a broad hint as to the direction things may go in.
With the last 12 months also marking biopic releases for both Elvis Presley and Whitney Houston, there seems to be no slowdown for a genre that continues to reliably pull audiences into cinemas when other kinds of movies aren’t. We’ll bring you more on Michael as we hear it.
