There are a lot of moving pieces that go into making something as massive as director Antoine Fuqua’s Michael Jackson biopic. Unfortunately for all involved in this 2025 movie, what could be considered the greatest stumbling block for the picture has cropped up after the project has wrapped shooting. What we know about Michael has gotten a bit more complicated, as this massive issue not only leaves the film with an “unusable” ending, it could potentially sink the entire project.
The third act is where these problems come into play, as Puck (via The Independent) has reported that a good portion of writer John Logan’s script will now need to be rewritten and reshot. In the report, the cause for these woes are supposedly due to Michael’s depiction of the allegations involving “sexual offensive contacts” with 13 year old Jordan Chandler.
As it turns out, the Michael Jackson estate made an agreement with the Chandler family to never “dramatize” those events. The Lionsgate film slated for release on October 3rd apparently does just that, and in the following manner that’s cited in the report:
[The ending] hinges specifically on the impact of the Chandler circus … In the script I read – which I’m told was close to final, but obviously these things are often revised – a tense sequence involves Branca (Teller), Johnnie Cochran (Derek Luke), and other Jackson lawyers discussing whether to pay off Chandler and his family. … At one point, the lawyers play the infamous recording, submitted in court, of Jordan’s father threatening to leverage his son’s accusations to ‘destroy’ his ex-wife and Jackson’s career.
Complicating matters even further, there’s a bit of a fork in the road for Michael’s journey to the big screen. With an estimated $155 million production spend already on the books, and filming wrapped as of May 2024, retooling the Jaafar Jackson-led film is going to be complicated. Though sources are “confident” that an agreement will be reached, failure to do so would be a serious problem.
It may still be early days for this movie’s promotion cycle, but it wasn’t too early for Michael’s 2024 CinemaCon footage to start wowing people last spring. While reshoots and rewrites are common in the world of film production, the challenges facing this project are rather unique.
To reiterate: an entire version of this movie was written, and filmed, depicting real life events that need to be handled with the utmost sensitivity. With further details involving Michael’s third act and “traumatizing strip searches” conducted on Michael Jackson, that sentiment cannot be understated.
A fine line needs to be walked to overhaul the ending to Michael, but at the moment, it's still in play for its October 3, 2025 debut. Further updates on the matter will tell if this release date holds up, or if the upcoming music biopic is released at all. With a year ahead that has at least one more major entry in that subgenre, thanks to everything we know about the Bruce Springsteen biopic, the clock continues to tick on this hotly anticipated motion picture.
