Michael Jackson’s biopic is in the making, and some big names in film are behind it.
The man in the mirror will soon be taking a look at the silver screen. Following a series of successful biopics based on famous musicians, Michael Jackson seems to be the latest smooth criminal in line. The rights to Jackson’s estate, which includes all his music, have been secured by Graham King, who produced the award-winning Bohemian Rhapsody about Freddie Mercury. The Queen biopic starred Rami Malek as the flamboyant frontman who had come from humble beginnings after growing up in Zanzibar.
A chance encounter with a band in a pub led to down a role of stardom, which ultimately made him one of the most recognizable singers in the world. Although the film picked up Academy Awards for Best Lead Actor, Beat Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, and Best Mixing, some critics and Queen historians were unhappy over their belief that the movie had glossed over the difficult times in Mercury’s life such as his substance abuse and addiction to drugs, his sexuality as a gay man, and his ultimate death as a result of AIDS.
According to Deadline, the planned Jackson biopic is not I tending to sugar-coat any of the King of Pop’s life. John Logan, who wrote Gladiator and the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator, has been hired to pen the screenplay.
The film, which does not yet have a title nor director, is expected to cover Michael’s life from when he was a young singer in his family’s Jackson Five group, through to the allegations of sexual misconduct that plagued him from the ’80s, and his death in June 2009 at the hands of his personal physician, Conrad Murray.
A filming date has not been announced as yet.
