Michael Jackson Biopic: Who Really Wrote This Story?

Becca Hartwell: Okay, welcome to Star Witness. I'm Becca Hartwell, and Miles, I have to say, this one has everything. Miles: Everything. Box office records, legal landmines, a pay dispute, a secret clause from 1993. Where do you even start? Becca Hartwell: You start with $97 million domestic opening weekend, biggest biopic debut ever. Miles: Wow. Becca Hartwell: According to Variety, it smashed Straight Outta Compton's record. Current by nearly forty million dollars. Miles: And yet critics gave it thirty eight per cent. on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences gave it ninety seven. Becca Hartwell: Fifty nine points apart. That gap is almost the whole story. Almost. Miles: Right, because here's the thing: the film audiences saw was not the film anyone actually shot. According to Variety, reshoots cost $10 million or more to scrap an ending that included the child abuse allegations against Jackson. Becca Hartwell: And that wasn't creative. That was legal. A clause buried in the 1993 Chandler civil settlement. moment barred any depiction of the accuser in film or TV. Nobody caught it until fall 2024. Miles: So they finished the whole movie first. Becca Hartwell: Yeah, and then someone read the contract. Miles: 22 days of reshoots later, you get a new ending at the 1988 Bad Tour, five years before the allegations, capped with a title card that says, His story continues. Becca Hartwell: A sequel tease that doubles as a legal workaround. That's genuinely impressive in a grim sort of way. Miles: And then, get this, TMZ reports Nia Long is quietly fighting Lionsgate over a pay discrepancy, a favored nations clause allegedly violated. Becca Hartwell: While Spike Lee is out defending the film's timeline choices, it is a lot. Miles: It is so much. All right, let's get into it, starting with how one legal clause rewrote a $200 million movie. Becca Hartwell: OK, so get this. A film just broke the all-time record for the biggest opening weekend in any biopic in history, $97 million domestic, $430 million globally and still climbing. By every number that matters in Hollywood, Michael is a phenomenon. Miles: And yet the movie audiences are cheering for, it's not the movie that was actually made. Becca Hartwell: That's the thing, right? That's the whole thing. The version. Version that exists in theaters right now is a fundamentally different film from what Antoine Fuqua shot. Miles: So here's the production timeline because it matters. Principal photography wrapped, Fuqua finished his cut, he's literally submitting it, and then boom, he gets the call. Becca Hartwell: Wait for it. Miles: The lawyers from the estates found a clause, a clause in a 1993 civil settlement with Jordan Chandler that said flat out. Out, Chandler cannot be mentioned or depicted in a film. Ever. Becca Hartwell: And nobody caught this during production? Miles: Nobody caught it. Variety confirmed the estate's attorneys discovered it in fall two thousand twenty four, well after the cameras had wrapped. Becca Hartwell: Playfully! Miles: Yeah, oops to the tune of a $200 million movie. Becca Hartwell: So what did the original film actually look like? Because Fuqua told the New Yorker this wasn't some small tweak. Miles: Not even close. Per Variety, the film originally opened in medias res, 1993, Neverland Ranch, police lights flashing, Michael staring at his reflection in a mirror, investigators arriving to search the property. Fuqua said, and I'm quoting here, I shot him being stripped naked, treated like an animal. Becca Hartwell: That was the opening scene? Miles: That was the framing device for the whole film. Becca Hartwell: And then they had Twenty-Two days of reshoots, the estate covered the costs, somewhere between $10 and $15 million just for the additional photography, according to Variety, and the movie now ends in 1988. eight at the Bad Tour, five years before the allegations even became public. Miles: Which is a choice. Framing it as the first half of his story is one way to read it, but you're also watching a two hundred million dollar film that was legally required to erase a central chapter of its own subject's life. Becca Hartwell: And audiences gave it an A-minus on CinemaScore. Critics, thirty nine percent on Rotten Tomatoes. This Miles: So fans love it, critics hate it, a sequel is already greenlit, and the movie we saw isn't the one that was shot. That's a lot. Becca Hartwell: Here's the question I keep coming back to, Miles. If the estate holds the rights, controls the depictions, and can rewrite an entire third act, are we ever actually watching a biopic or just an authorized highlight reel? Miles: And that question gets a lot more specific once you pull up... Pull up exactly what that settlement said. The actual language of that clause is where this whole story lives. Becca Hartwell: So let's go there. So here's the clause itself: "Provided the nineteen ninety four civil settlement between Jackson and Jordan Chandler's family contained a provision barring any depiction or mention of Chandler in any movie, full stop. Miles: And nobody caught it! That's the part that gets me. The estate greenlit the script, Lionsgate greenlit the script, principal photography wrapped in May twenty twenty four, Fuqua shot the whole third act. Becca Hartwell: The whole thing! According to Puck's reporting, the original script opened and closed with the Chandler story; it was the framing device start to finish. Miles: Wright and Puck's Mapoloni, who reviewed an early draft, said the script depicts Jackson as the naive victim of the money grubbing Chandlers. The third act had Miles Teller as John Branca and Derek Luke as Johnnie Cochran actually debating whether to settle. There was even a recording of Evan Chandler. Becca Hartwell: That's exactly what the settlement banned. Miles: Exactly. Chandler's attorney, Larry Feldman, told the New York Times the deal barred neither side from doing anything about publicizing or communicating what occurred. When he heard the original framing, he said, and I'm quoting, that's exactly what they couldn't do. Becca Hartwell: So how does nobody catch this for two plus years of active development? Miles: Here's the thing: The nineteen ninety four agreement was drafted by John Branca and Howard Weitzman. Speaker 3: Weitzman. Miles: and Howard Weitzman. Both attorneys are deceased, the estate's co-executor, Speaker 3: and the estate's co-executor. Becca Hartwell: Executor John Branca was reportedly not closely involved with Jackson during that period. Deadline actually reported Branca's blind spot traces back to the fact he was in one of his "out" periods with Jackson when the settlement was negotiated. Miles: So the people who knew the fine print Speaker 4: M. Miles: were gone. Becca Hartwell: Gone. And what triggered the discovery was a September, twenty twenty four, Financial Times story about separate twenty twenty payments the estate made to a different set of accusers. That story apparently prompted someone to go back and audit the older agreements. Fall twenty twenty four, the clause surfaces; November, the release date quietly shifts; then in January twenty twenty five Puck breaks the full story. Miles: And that's when the public found out what everyone inside already knew. Becca Hartwell: Right, a finished film, a completed third act, all of it legally unusable. Miles: And there's a second favored nation's problem layered on top of this. TMZ reported that Nia Long, who plays Katherine Jackson, had a favored nation's clause in her own contract guaranteeing her pay wouldn't fall below her co-stars. Speaker 5: Wow. Miles: When the reshoots gutted her third act role, she lost screen time and, according to Puck's reporting via therichest.com, her original role was substantially larger in the scenes that got cut. Becca Hartwell: So now she's reportedly threatening mediation against Lionsgate over the shortfall. Colman Domingo and Miles Teller per TMZ ended up with higher payouts. Miles: One clause in a 1994 document sets off a chain reaction that rewrites the movie. delays it a year, and now has cast members in disputes, Becca Hartwell: And that's just the legal paperwork. The production fallout, the actual reshoots, who paid for them, what it cost to fix it, that's a whole other story. Miles: which is exactly where we're going. 22 days of reshoots, the estate cutting a check for damages it created, and a new ending built to feel like a choice rather than a correction. So the estate is on the hook for their own mess. 22 days, June 2025. Full cast back on set. According to Variety, the reshoots cost somewhere between $10 and $15 million, all covered by the Jackson estate, Speaker 6: Wow. Miles: because per sources, the oversight failure was theirs. Becca Hartwell: And it gets better. Bloomberg reported that Fuqua and producer Graham King got a combined $25 million in advance. An additional compensation to oversee the overhaul, Fuqua went from ten million to twenty five million, King from six million to sixteen million. Miles: So the mistake literally paid out! Becca Hartwell: ("The estate's lawyers miss a clause and Fuqua more than doubles his check." That is a wild sentence to say out loud.) Miles: And there's one more thing piling onto this: the Palisades fire. It damaged screenwriter John Logan's home mid rewrite. rewrite. So you've got a legal emergency, a totally new ending to write, and now a natural disaster slowing the whole thing down. Becca Hartwell: That explains the domino of release delays: April 2025, then October 2026, then finally April 2026. Miles: Right. And what they landed on for the ending is the part I cannot get over. The film now closes on the Bad Tour, nineteen eighty-eight, Jackson at Wembley, crowd going insane. Peak of everything. Becca Hartwell: Five years before the Chandler allegations. Clean slate. Miles: And then a title card appears. His story continues. Becca Hartwell: Very Marvel of them. Miles: Right? It is absolutely coded as a franchise tease. But here's the thing, Miles. That title card is doing so much work. What started as a legal constraint gets dressed up as a franchise choice. Becca Hartwell: I mean, that's honestly kind of brilliant in a... In a cynical way, they turned we couldn't legally go further into stay tuned for part two. Miles: Playfully, lawyers accidentally invented a Cinematic Universe. Becca Hartwell: Deadpan, the jocks in a state Cinematic Universe. I'm in. Miles: But think about where that leaves critics. The film ends in 1988, so when critics say, this dodges the allegations, Spike Lee went on CNN and said, The timeline just doesn't get there, that you can't include what happened five years later. Becca Hartwell: Which is technically true, but the timeline ending in 1988 was a legal outcome, not a storytelling decision. Those are very different things. Miles: And that's exactly where critics and fans draw the line, which that whole divide is where we're headed next. So here's the Rotten Tomatoes situation. 38% from critics, 97% from audiences. That's not a gap, Miles. That's a canyon. Becca Hartwell: Yeah, and the film's biographer, Joe Vogel, who wrote Man in the Music, he told The Hollywood Reporter the critical response quote, seems a bit disingenuous. His argument, Bohemian Rhapsody Rocketman Elvis, all sanitized, all scored higher. Miles: I'm on board with that to a point. Those films absolutely got softer treatment, but... Becca Hartwell: But here's where I push back. Freddie Mercury's omissions were about personal privacy. Elvis glossed over drug use. What got cut from this film was allegations of child sexual abuse. That's not the same tier. Miles: Okay, that's fair. The nature of what's missing matters. Still, you've got a film that legally could not include those years. Spike Lee saw it twice. He told CNN the allegations don't fit the timeline, because the film ends in 1988 and the first allegation came in 1993. Becca Hartwell: Right, and technically that's accurate. Miles: Exactly. So critics are punishing a film for not depicting events that hadn't happened yet in the film's own story. Becca Hartwell: Becca Hartwell, I hear you, but the timeline ending in 1988 was a legal outcome, not a story choice. That's the part that gets me. Spike Lee's defense is real, but it's also defending a constraint the estate created. Miles: Hmm. That's... yeah. Okay, that's the thing. Becca Hartwell: The Bohemian Rhapsody parallel actually helps make that case. Graham King produced both films, same producer, same playbook. You can't claim the comparison is unfair and then use the same guy's template. Miles: That is a very specific receipts moment. Becca Hartwell: I keep receipts. Miles: But does the 97% audience score mean anything? That's not noise. That's nearly 57,000 people saying they loved it. Becca Hartwell: It means the fans showed up for the music, and they should. The film has over 30 Jackson songs remastered for theaters. Of course that works on an audience. Miles: So you're saying the audience Becca Hartwell: The score measures a concert experience, not a biopic. Miles: More or less, a critic is asking whether it told an honest story; a fan is asking whether it made them feel something. Both are legitimate questions, they're just not the same question. Becca Hartwell: And the sequel tease makes it worse, honestly, because now the defenses will get to the hard stuff in part two. Meanwhile, part one already made $423 million globally. Miles: Wow. Becca Hartwell: There's no- It's no pressure to actually go there. Miles: The Hollywood Reporter put it cleanly: "If the sequels debate gets louder depending on how the scandals are addressed, that's Lionsgate's problem to solve, but so far the financial incentive to stay safe is enormous. Becca Hartwell: Accountability deferred is accountability optional. Miles: Yeah, and while that debate consumed every entertainment column for two weeks, something else was happening on set that barely got covered. Someone found out her contract wasn't being honored either. Becca Hartwell: That's exactly where we need to go next. Buried under the fan critic noise is something much more concrete: Nia Long, according to Puck's Matthew Belloni, is quietly fighting Lionsgate over her pay. Miles: And here's why that matters: she had a favored nation's clause. Plain English: the studio contractually promised she would not earn less than comparable cast members. Becca Hartwell: Right; then she reportedly found out that both Colman Domingo and Miles Teller were paid Speaker 3: even less than she was. Becca Hartwell: Fuller pulled higher payouts. TMZ confirmed the same three source account. Miles: And her role shrank; the reshoots cut a key scene she was featured in from the third act, so she got paid less for a smaller part. Becca Hartwell: In a film that grossed four hundred and thirty million dollars globally, while Fuqua and Graham King each walked away with millions in additional compensation for the overhaul. Miles: That's the part that really stings-the people who caused the problem. got paid to fix it. Becca Hartwell: Wow. Miles: The person who lost screen time is now threatening mediation. Becca Hartwell: And Lionsgate, no public statement. Nothing. Miles: Bologna flag something else, too. If the Estate wants a sequel shooting later this year, that negotiation now involves cast members who have scheduling conflicts, and at least one who has an unresolved pay grievance. Becca Hartwell: So the PR machine worked exactly as designed. Right? The reshoot drama gets all the oxygen, the fan critic fight dominates the conversation, and Nia Long's dispute gets buried. Miles: Quietly fighting-that's the phrase; not loudly, not publicly-quietly. Becca Hartwell: Which brings me to the bigger question: When an estate controls the rights, funds the production and shapes the final cut, who actually gets protected and who gets written out? Out. Miles: That's exactly where we're landing next. Becca Hartwell: So here is the actual structural question underneath all of this. When the estate holds the rights, funds the reshoots, and has equity in the production, you're not really watching a biopic. You're watching a licensed document. Miles: And that's exactly what makes the sequel conversation so thorny. Fuqua confirmed to Billboard there's absolutely footage from the post-allegations years. He said, quote, We went through the Jordan allegations we couldn't use. Becca Hartwell: So the sequel is basically the content the estate already vetoed once. You think the web of NDAs and active settlements just evaporates? Miles: Skeptical-no chance." And Variety reported the sequel focus would be on "Dangerous, Invincible, Becca Hartwell: Hmm. Miles: Neverland, his love of animals." That's a tell. Becca Hartwell: Look, my read is every biopic is authorized to some degree; the estate is just more transparent about it here. Legal constraints shaped the story-that's real. Miles: I can't land there, Becca Hartwell. The knee-along dispute is the tell for me. The machine compensated Fuqua and King handsomely, then allegedly short-changed the one black woman in the cast. That's not a legal constraint. That's a choice. Becca Hartwell: And that's the question this film actually leaves you with, not whether Michael did it, but who controls the Miles: Yeah. Becca Hartwell: story and who pays the price when they get it wrong. Okay, so if there's one thing this episode made me keep coming back to, the Nia Long situation says everything. The reshoots protected the estate, handsomely paid the director and producer, and she's the one left fighting a violated contract clause. Miles: Right. And that 38 to 97 critic audience split on Rotten Tomatoes, that gap tells you something real is happening, whether you call it a double standard or justified pushback. Pushback. People are not watching this film the same way. Becca Hartwell: Miles, I still can't get over that title card. His story continues. A legal constraint dressed up as a sequel tease. Miles: Genuinely audacious. Okay, if you've got a celebrity case you want us to put on trial, drop it in the reviews or tag us at StarWitnessPod. Becca Hartwell: New episodes every Wednesday. Subscribe so you don't miss the verdict. Miles: Thanks for listening, everybody. Becca Hartwell: And that's our show.