JOIN OUR WHATSAPP CHANNEL
Michael Jackson Biopic Faces Legal Challenge, Forcing Reshoots as Past Agreement With Accuser Surfaces
Michael Jackson's biopic gets a new release date as it has to reshoot the majority of the film due to unexpected legal setbacks. Read on to know the details.
Trigger Warning: This article contains mention of sexual abuse.
Michael, an upcoming biopic about the life of Michael Jackson played by Jaafar Jackson, is seeing substantial delays following the discovery of a legal issue associated with an earlier settlement to one of the Bad singer's molestation accusers.
The film, previously scheduled for an April 2025 release, has been pushed to October of next year as producers work on the issue. According to a report from Puck on January 23, 2025, filmmakers are rewriting parts of the script and doing reshoots as they scramble to rework the film.
The report suggests that due to the King of Pop's estate overlooking a key contract in settlement with a molestation accuser, almost the entire third act of the film is now unusable.
The film reshoots because Jackson had settled with Jordan Chandler's family in 1993, which included a legal clause banning any reference or dramatization of the case. Jordan Chandler, 13 at the time, had accused the Thriller singer of sexual abuse. The out-of-court settlement reportedly totaled 25 million USD.
The settlement agreement that had been ignored during the review of the film's script is one of the major legal issues, as the Chandler story forms a large part of the storyline.
However, a spokesperson recently told People magazine, "The Michael Jackson biopic is not in total chaos. The inflammatory headlines about the moving halting are simply not true. The film is moving forward, and reshoots are happening in March."
The estate of Jackson has consistently denied all the allegations of abuse. In 2005, Michael Jackson was acquitted of charges of molesting children.
Directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by John Logan, Michael, starring Jaafar Jackson and Colman Domingo, hits the theaters on October 3rd, 2025.
ALSO READ: Michael Jackson’s Unreleased Tracks From the '90s Resurface in the Most Unexpected Way
Latest Articles
