Michael Jackson Biopic Reportedly Jeopardized By Unearthed Agreement With Family Of Misconduct Accuser

This October, the Michael Jackson biopic Michael is scheduled to open in theaters, and it’s probably going to be a big deal. The film, which has been in the works for years, has already wrapped production. It has a script from Gladiator screenwriter John Logan, and Training Day auteur Antoine Fuqua directed it. The Jackson estate was heavily involved in the production, and Michael’s nephew Jaafar will play the lead role. The October release date suggests that Michael will contend for Oscars, and producer Graham King was hugely successful on that front with his Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. But now, the film’s future is in question because of a decades-old legal agreement that Jackson made with the family of a boy who accused him of sexual assault.

As Screenrant points out, journalist Matt Belloni, in his Puck newsletter, has reported that the final act of Michael cannot legally be used. Belloni has seen the movie’s script, and he reports that its ending centers on the lawsuit from Evan Chandler, whose 13-year-old son Jordan accused Jackson of sexual abuse. According to Belloni, the script maintains that Jackson was innocent and that the movie “depicts Jackson as the naïve victim of the money-grubbing Chandler.”

Michael Jackson settled the Chandlers’ lawsuit out of court, and he was later found not guilty in two separate sex-abuse cases. According to Belloni, the final act of Michael revolves around conversations that Jackson had with lawyers like Johnnie Cochran and John Branca over whether to pay off the Chandlers. Branca, now one of the executors of Jackson’s estate, is one of the movie’s producers, and he’s portrayed onscreen by Miles Teller.

Now, Belloni says that the movie will be legally prohibited from using those scenes because of Jackson’s out-of-court settlement with the Chandlers: “Years before signing off on the Michael movie with the Chandlers featured in the script, Jackson’s team agreed they would never include the family in any such movie.” Reportedly, the agreement prohibits Jackson’s estate from using the Chandlers in any dramatic story. Michael already has an estimated $150 million budget, but it may have to go through serious rewrites and reshoots before it can be released.

Even without that ending, Michael already faces heavy scrutiny simply by existing. Dan Reed directed Leaving Neverland, the HBO documentary focused on more abuse allegations against Jackson, and he wrote a Guardian opinion piece in which he argued that Michael “will glorify a man who raped children.”

As of right now, Michael is scheduled to open 10/3.