A full length trailer has finally been released for “Michael,” which is set to hit theaters on April 24, 2026. It’s as glossy as you would expect it to be. Can’t say I’m not, at the very least, intrigued by how this one will turn out.
After watching this trailer — not convinced we have a great movie here. The dialogue is stilted, the photography is too slick, Jaafar Jackson’s performance feels a tad off— yet, I’ll still gladly be seated for this out of sheer curiosity. It’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ on steroids.
The highest grossing biopic of all time is “Bohemian Rhapsody” at 900M+. Surprisingly, in a distant second place is “Elvis” at $288M, which means “Michael will probably have no problem overtaking it. Fuqua’s biopic has a budget of $155M, and some of it stems from the scenes that were already shot, and scrapped for the second movie— if it ever happens.
The other potential hiccup surrounding this project is Fuqua. He hasn’t proven—at least to me—that he’s a worthy enough filmmaker. He botched “Emancipation,” and really, the only good film he’s made is “Training Day,” which, let’s be honest, worked largely because of Denzel Washington’s magnetic performance. That said, I did like “Shooter,” which was such an absurd action movie that it defied every implausibility and somehow turned out to be watchable.
Fuqua and screenwriter John Logan were forced to completely rethink “Michael” after a rights dispute involving one of Jackson’s former molestation accusers rendered a large chunk of already-shot material legally unusable. This has led to only half the film being released next year.
Reshoots for “Michael” quietly wrapped in September, and the finished cut now ends with Jackson’s meteoric rise to superstardom in the 1980s—meaning everything that came after, including his court battles, have been cut. That’s despite two full weeks of footage filmed at Neverland Ranch. All of it? Scrapped.
Producer Graham King already has plans for a follow-up film that would tackle Jackson’s “King of Pop” years, with new material featuring Jaafar Jackson (Michael’s nephew, playing the man himself), Colman Domingo, and Miles Teller. The catch? The sequel only happens if “Michael” becomes a hit with audiences when it opens next April. If it lands big, or even shows strong early tracking, they’ll move forward. If not, all that extra footage turns out to be a waste of money, and the Jackson estate, which has been covering the costs of this production fiasco, eats the losses.
Earlier in the year, when things looked a little rosier for “Michael,” Fuqua reportedly had a cut running nearly four hours long, which Lionsgate had planned to split into two parts. The goal was to turn it into an “event” film, something on the scale of “Wicked.” Now? That latter half—roughly two hours of footage—might never see the light of day.
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