Jaafar Jackson Says ‘Michael’ Sequel Will ‘Give More Insight’ Into Uncle Michael Jackson’s POV About Child Abuse Allegations — Billboard

RESOLVING THE LEDGER

While the billion-dollar Michael biopic avoided delving into the allegations of child sexual abuse against late self-proclaimed King of Pop Michael Jackson by ending his story in 1987 — several years before the chart superstar was hit with his first allegation — the singer’s nephew and Michael star Jaafar Jackson says the upcoming sequel will take the matter on.

In an interview with GQ Middle East , Jaafar said the second part will take on that difficult chapter in his uncle’s life, telling it from MJ’s perspective. “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 told the magazine.

“It’s someone else’s story,” Jaafar added. “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.”

In 1993, the family of Jordan Chandler accused Jackson of sexual abuse. The case involving the child who had spent considerable time with the singer was investigated by Santa Barbara authorities, who did not file any criminal charges, though Jackson settled a civil lawsuit brought by the family for a reported $25 million.

Jackson was then arrested in 2003 and indicted on several counts of child molestation, administering an intoxicating agent and other charges involving 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo. That case went to trial and Jackson was acquitted on all charges in 2005. A 2019 documentary, Leaving Neverland , included allegations from choreographer Wade Robson and James Safechuck that Jackson sexually abused them as children; Jackson and his representatives have steadfastly denied any allegations of impropriety involving children and Jackson was never found guilty of any charges.

The Antoine Fuqua-directed Michael tells the story of the singer’s rise from modest means in Indiana as part of his family band the Jackson 5 and his eventual emergence as the biggest pop star on the planet, ending in 1987 with the release of his Bad album.

Fuqua previously told The New Yorker that the first movie opened with the infamous 1993 police raid on Jackson’s Neverland Ranch home following molestation allegations of abuse by Chandler. Scenes tied to the abuse allegations were reportedly filmed during the first shoot, but a last-minute legal dispute forced producers to cut those scenes when the Jackson estate realized a clause in one of the settlements with accuser Chandler blocked them from addressing those claims in the film.

The late discovery reportedly resulted in costly $50 million reshoots that delayed the original movie’s release. But earlier this month, Lionsgate motion picture boss Adam Fogelson said the studio hopes to start production on the sequel later this year or early next year, with plans to release part two in late 2027 or early 2028.

Fogelson said that it was possible some of the material shot for the first film could resurface in the second chapter. “We have a number of sequences, particularly some big musical sequences, that were shot previously, that are almost sure to be incorporated,” Fogelson said. “We are mostly focused right now on how to make sure we can deliver, at the right price, the biggest, best sequel. That is what the audience is going to want and deserve after the experience we gave them the first time.”

Fuqua described the difficult decision not to address the allegations in the first film, saying the reshoots were “tough,” but that the film’s production team were on the same page about how to tell the singer’s story. “The movie is called Michael so you have to focus on Michael. Unless you can truly take your time, let’s go back to the beginning and really show people who he was on the stage,” the director said. “He’s a superhero on the stage. Just like a human being, movies have the power of empathy to just say this is a human being. No one is perfect. It was important to take the audience through a process of how do you get to wherever it’s going to go in a second movie; for people to get a bigger idea of his personality and what shaped him.”

The director also noted that quite a bit of footage shot for the first film could be used in the sequel, noting that the shoot “went pretty far” into Jackson’s later years; Jackson died in June 2009 at age 50 after cardiac arrest caused by acute poisoning with the powerful surgical anesthetic propofol.

“We went through the Jordan allegations we couldn’t use. We went farther than that. Maybe a year or two after that (1995) when things turned against Michael,” Fuqua said.

Jaafar Jackson, who described the last time he saw his uncle, just two months before MJ’s death in the interview, told the magazine that access to the singer’s journals gave him a rare window into Michael’s inner world that helped inform his portrayal. “A lot of those notes were through a child’s eyes, in a way. Very adventurous, innocently driven,” he said. “One of the notes was like, ‘As soon as I walk out of the street, I want 10,000 people stopping in their tracks and just watching me.’ He wanted all of that. As a kid, you see things a little differently and there’s a lot of curiosity. And that’s something Michael never lost, and I feel like he only gained more as he got older.”

Jaafar also said he was excited to tell more of Jackson’s story from “the point of view of himself,” predicting that Michael 2 — the film’s official title has not been revealed yet — will hopefully help him achieve that goal. “There’s so much more to Michael’s story. There’s so much to who Michael was and how he expressed himself,” Jaafar said.

Jaafar Jackson Says ‘Michael’ Sequel Will ‘Give More Insight’ Into Uncle Michael Jackson’s POV About Child Abuse Allegations — Billboard | AIPROPX