Jaafar Jackson has spoken about the cut third act of the Michael Jackson biopic that was set to deal with child abuse allegations
Michael was released in April and tells the story of The King Of Pop, from his time in the Jackson 5 to becoming one of the biggest stars in the world. The biopic ends in 1988 with Jackon performing at Wembley Stadium as part of the ‘Bad World Tour’.
The film had the biggest ever opening for a musical biopic and went on to take more than $1billion at the box office, becoming the highest-grossing biopic of all time.
However Michael didn’t include any reference to the child sexual abuse allegations against Jackson, though the story was included in the initial screenplay. During production, a clause in a legal settlement was discovered, which forbid the Jackson estate from mentioning one of the accusers, Jordan Chandler, meaning that the production spent $15million on reshoots. The movie ultimately ended at a different point in Jackson’s life, shifting the narrative tension onto his relationship with his father, Joe (Colman Domingo).
Jaafar Jackson, Michael’s nephew who played the King Of Pop in the biopic, has now spoken about leaving that material on the cutting room floor.
“It was a massive shoot. I’ve heard many stories from other actors about how much you shoot on a project that doesn’t make it into the final picture. In the editing room, you go through scenes looking for specific performances or takes and things change constantly. So going in, I knew not everything we shot would make it into the final picture,” he said in an interview with Variety.
“But for me, it was the most rewarding experience because even the things that weren’t used, the experience I got from them, made me a better actor. I feel like that will happen many more times with other projects. You wish a certain performance was in there and it’s not. That’s something you have to deal with when making a film.”
“Seeing a film about your own family can make a lot of people uncomfortable because you have your own idea of what that is, and it’s hard to capture it in a two-hour film. But the response I got from my family was incredible,” he added.
Elsewhere in the interview, Jaafar reflected on his uncle Michael and said his earliest memories were asking him for candy. “He always had candy machines or stacks of candy in the movie theater, and I had a problem with an addiction to Starbursts at that age. Pink and red. I would eat too many as a kid. I remember always asking him for candy and wanting to play. He always had the latest games and game consoles, and we’d play hide-and-seek,” he said. “He was the best at it. It was just fun, free-roaming and a blast all the time.”
In August, it was confirmed that Michael will be getting a sequel. According to Jaafar, the film will address abuse allegations from [Michael’s] point of view. “At the end of the day, [the allegations] are always from someone else’s,” he said. “It’s someone else’s story. 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.”
However, speaking to Variety, he confirmed that he’s not been told “anything concrete” about the sequel. “Whatever decision is made, I’m more than ready to get back into it.”
