Also a child-size popcorn bucket with a hole in the bottom.

Haha. Those people who cut trailers couldn't even give Billy Jean a break. Just play the song!

Rocketman was good. Bohemian Rapsody was good because I love Queen songs - but was otherwise like a reverse-spoof of Walk Hard.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is still the king of these biopics.

My concerns about this film have played out as expected. Movie is totally panned. Currently an anemic 40 on Metacritc.

Yeah I saw a few video reactions last night. It’s basically a celebration of Michael Jackson. One person called it toothless. They completely ignore all his controversy since it gets cut off by the Bad album portion of his career.

As if a film involving the Jackson family would be anything but that. I still listen to Jackson's music fairly regularly but no way am I contributing to a celebration of the person. Hope it tanks.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/michael

31% with 77 reviews so far.

Basically it looks like this is just re-enactments of Michael's big career performances and listening to his music for 2 hours. If you want an insightful bio, this isn't it.

Family approved puff piece. Pass

Did we expect it was going to be anything else?

I don't think any reasonable person expected different. This was always going to be a weird tribute movie.

I didn't read up about it at all during production. Other recent bio pics have been well done. I guess I just thought this could at least match the quality of those, even without touching on some of the controversy.

But after learning the story about the Prince doc we'll never get to see, I should have expected no more than fluff.

I'm generally disgusted by the hype over this movie, glad it's being called out for ignoring everything that doesn't canonize Michael. Having watched Finding Neverland I can't ever view MJ with a neutral eye again. It's gross on social media to see the Michael army out in force anything anyone posts anything negative about it. (It's currently being heavily ratioed on review sites too)

The sad part is I'm sure it will make a shitload of money.

That damn Johnny Depp is an enabler!

Whether it's finding or leaving Neverland, I condemn MJ and Depp equally!

Janet Jackson declined to have her character used in the movie. So I guess she's not mentioned at all? That's weird.

Not really surprised they leave out the negative aspects of his life given the Jackson family was heavily involved in its production. My understanding is that early drafts actually used the 1993 raid of Neverland ranch and the investigation of MJ as its bookend moments, and it may have been shot, but they did some re-editing to give it the ending the family wanted.

Reportedly, the entire 3rd act was reshot because they were not allowed to use information regarding his settlement with a victim. This ends before all of his sex scandal stuff.

I read that she also got in a verbal tussle with family members after the premeire.

I just saw the early access and yeah, it was okay. The first half of the story is decent enough with the beginnings of the Jackson Five, the beginnings of his solo career breaking off from his dad and the choreography of the video for Beat It. Dialog is too on the nose with him telling his new manager that he wants to be the #1 pop star, not just black artist, but any race! Or the contrived sounding dialog with the head of Sony where he says that he wants to get his videos on MTV, and the Sony guy says they don't play videos from black artists, and Michael says "try harder" and the Sony guy calls up the head of MTV on the spot and began what I thought was a fake conversation to trick Michael, but apparently it was just bad acting and it was actually representing Sony threatening to pull videos from Bruce Springsteen and Cyndi Lauper unless they put Billie Jean on constant rotation, etc. Awful stuff includes Bubbles the CG monkey used for comic relief with 100% of his scenes completely unnecessary. The movie does some foreshadowing to explain Michael's issues with children (he's just a kid at heart and loves playing Twister with Bubbles) and with pain killers (after the burn injury, he says he doesn't want pain killers, but the doctor insists that with his extensive nerve damage, he'll have to be on pain killers his whole life). The last third of the movie drags with the Jackson Victory reunion, then abrupted jumps to late 80s and a live performance of Bad, then just ends with an on screen "to be continued". They certainly could have expanded more of the writing and studio process with Quincy Jones (the trailer makes it looks like this could be the focus), and there is nothing in the movie on the creation of the Bad album that could have been interesting.

Sounds awful. I know this is not for me. The entire film is clearly fan service. Like a 2 hour Pepsi commercial. And I agree with Antipodean, making Michael out to be a saint is pretty disgusting.

Wow, I actually accidentally nailed this prediction in post #2 in this thread!

Something else I accidentally predicted. But I didn’t expect the studio to be this stupid.

Sigh. We definitely live in the stupidest timeline. Glad to see having, IMHO, pretty credible allegations of having sex with children doesn't hurt your career even when you're dead.




https://deadline.com/2026/04/box-off...el-1236870542/

‘Michael’ Really Turning Moviegoers On: Biopic Heading To $85M+ U.S. Opening

The first numbers for Lionsgate‘s Michael are in and it’s shaping up to be a $35M-$40M Friday, which includes those $12.6M previews. The Friday through Sunday range is $85M-$95M, and there’s a path to higher, it just boils down whether this is fan-frontloaded.

“Something special is happening, people are dancing in the theaters,” says one source close to the film.

I liked it. Of course there’s controversy with Michael Jackson and this film is very sanitized and leaves a lot out, but just taking it for what it is it’s a fun watch. Jaafar Jackson does great in the role.

Also it’s rather silly to think this wasn’t going to make big money. In spite of the controversy surrounding him he’s still a huge artist that’s going to draw an audience.

This is up for pre-order over at Lionsgate Limited:


https://lionsgatelimited.com/product...53005155369071

• A definitive collector’s edition celebrating the life, the artistry, and the legacy of Michael Jackson
• Featuring the Lionsgate Limited Extra 50-page book with never-before-seen and behind-the-scenes photography, with an introduction from Jaafar Jackson
• Loaded with special features including making-of and behind-the-scenes featurettes
• New collectible artwork by gravillis™ captures his groundbreaking, iconic dance moves