Jaafar Jackson Predicts ‘Michael’ Sequel Will Offer ‘Insight’ Into Child Abuse Allegations From Singer’s POV

One of the biggest points of conversation surrounding the $1 billion-grossing music biopic “Michael” was the film’s lack of addressing the child sexual abuse allegations made against the late pop star Michael Jackson. With a potential sequel on the horizon, “Michael” star (and MJ’s nephew) Jaafar Jackson shared he believes this topic will be addressed in the follow-up — from a certain point of view.

“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,” Jaafar told GQ Middle East on Thursday. “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.”

Jaafar went on to say that this two-part biopic strategy gives audiences the chance to understand Michael and his upbringing more before heading into a sequel after seeing the first film from Antoine Fuqua and John Logan.

“This first film focuses on Michael from his roots. So you get that idea of who he was before he had all the success and became the icon that people are familiar with, you understand who he was as a human being first, because at the end of the day, that’s who he was in the ’90s until he passed,” Jaafar said. “He never changed that purity, that sense of always wanting to find the good in other people. And no matter all the stuff he went through, how he was treated, what things were said about him, he never stopped treating people with kindness. He never stopped believing in and wanting to look for the good in people… even though he was broken, his heart still stayed the same… I hope that this is felt in the second movie.”

The first “Michael” feature was wildly successful, becoming the first biopic in history to gross $1 billion at the global box office. But many critics pointed to the film’s choice of an ending point (cutting off in 1987 with the release of “Bad”) as a cop out to avoid the complicated legacy that surrounds Michael Jackson.

“If you’re wondering how ‘Michael’ can provide all the nostalgic performances and sappy melodrama you’d get from films like ‘Walk the Line’ and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ while failing to acknowledge the elephant in the room, this is ‘Michael’s’ answer: Don’t worry about it,” TheWrap’s William Bibbiani wrote at the time.

These allegations were frequently brought up during “Michael’s” release and press tour, with actors like Colman Domingo stressing that the film is told “through his eyes.” Some of MJ’s family members, however, were a bit more direct.

“Sorry media, u don’t get to control the narrative anymore of who Michael Jackson truly was. The public gets to watch this movie … they will decide for themselves,” Taj Jackson, the singer’s nephew, wrote on social media. “And you can’t handle that.”

With an ending card that reads, “His story continues,” audiences have wondered if a “Michael” sequel would be forced to address these allegations in a post-1987 story, and how they would be addressed if it did. There was initially a script for “Michael” that went more explicitly into the allegations, but it was later discovered that the Michael Jackson estate could not legally depict events involving one of Jackson’s accusers.

Despite this hurdle, Lionsgate film chair Adam Fogelson assured that progress for “Michael 2” was underway, noting on a May earnings call, “We are really excited about the progress we’re making with respect to a second ‘Michael’ film. All the conversations that we’ve been having with all of the appropriate parties continue to go exceptionally well, and I would say that there is a ton of incredibly entertaining Michael Jackson story left — and much of the biggest and most popular parts of his music catalog that were not touched upon in the first film.”

He added: “I would just say we can go forwards and backwards in telling this story. There are so many other events that happened, even in the time frame of the original movie, that weren’t touched upon, so we’re very, very confident that we’ve got an incredibly entertaining movie that will appeal once again to a global audience as the pieces come together.” 

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