The Michael Jackson biopic Michael is in its second weekend at the box office and it is still drawing big crowds. The film has crossed $413 million worldwide. But not everyone is happy with it. Some critics have slammed the movie for leaving out the child sexual abuse allegations that followed Jackson in the 1990s and 2000s. Now three time Oscar winner Spike Lee has stepped in to defend the film. He says the criticism misses the point entirely.
Lee spoke with CNN about the controversy. He made a simple argument. The movie ends in 1988. The allegations did not become public until 1993. “First of all, if you’re a movie critic, and you’re complaining about the stuff, all this other stuff, but the movie ends at ’88,” Lee told CNN. “The stuff you’re talking about, accusations, happen later. So you’re critiquing the film on something that you want in, but it doesn’t work in the timeline of the film.”
Lee did not stop there. He pointed to the film’s strong performance as proof that audiences understood the creative choice. “But people showed up. Worldwide, people showed their love,” he said. Lee also shared a personal connection to Jackson. “I miss Mike. I miss Prince. I mean, these are my brothers. I worked with both of them. Both beautiful, beautiful people.”
Why the Michael Biopic Ends in 1988
Director Antoine Fuqua made a deliberate choice to stop the story in 1988. The film follows Jackson’s rise from the Jackson 5 to becoming the King of Pop. It ends with him on his Bad world tour. That was five full years before the first allegations went public. Fuqua has said that including those events would have required a different movie entirely.
Speaking to Deadline, Fuqua explained that the goal was to focus on Jackson’s artistry. “Unless you can truly take your time, let’s go back to the beginning and really show people who he was on the stage,” he 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.”
The Sequel Plan and Legal Roadblocks
Fuqua has been open about wanting to tell the rest of the story in a potential sequel. He told Deadline that the first film plants the seeds for what could come next. “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.”
But there is another reason the allegations did not appear in this film. Legal restrictions played a big part. According to multiple reports, the Jackson estate discovered during production that they could not depict the 1993 allegations involving the Chandler family. That settlement included a provision that barred any future dramatization of those events. The film originally had a much longer cut that ran over three and a half hours. That version reportedly ended with an accuser. But the estate had overlooked the legal restrictions when they first greenlit the project.
The film underwent 22 additional days of reshoots last May to film a new ending. Lionsgate also considered splitting the movie into two parts. Fuqua has said he remains interested in directing the sequel if it happens. “I would like to, it’s just about scheduling,” he told Rova.nz.
The Bigger Context of the Jackson Allegations
The child abuse allegations against Michael Jackson have been debated for decades. The first claims emerged in 1993 involving a 13 year old boy named Jordan Chandler. That case ended in a settlement with no criminal charges. In 2003, Jackson was charged with seven counts of child molestation and two counts of intoxicating a minor. He denied all allegations and was acquitted in 2005. Following Jackson’s death in 2009, other accusers came forward. The 2019 HBO documentary Leaving Neverland featured detailed accounts from two men who said they were abused as children. Jackson’s estate has always denied the allegations and called the documentary a tabloid character assassination.
Spike Lee’s defense of Michael rests on a simple idea. Judge the movie for what it is, not for what you want it to be. The film tells a specific chapter of Jackson’s life. It ends before the scandals began. Whether a sequel will ever materialize remains unclear. But for now, audiences have voted with their wallets. And they showed up.
Michael is still playing in theaters nationwide.
Courtesy: Deadline
