Jaafar Jackson had quite the Hollywood introduction. His first major acting job was portraying his uncle, Michael Jackson, in the massive music biopic about one of the most famous entertainers ever. Then, after months of filming, a substantial portion of that work ended up on the cutting-room floor. I have been curious how the young actor handled that, especially given the circumstances behind the movie's rewritten conclusion.
The Michael star has finally addressed the changes during an interview with Variety. Jaafar Jackson was asked directly about losing material he had already filmed, and his answer was surprisingly philosophical for someone whose first movie required a rather expensive overhaul. He explained:
It was a massive shoot. I’ve heard many stories from other actors about how much you shoot on a project that doesn’t make it into the final picture. In the editing room, you go through scenes looking for specific performances or takes and things change constantly. So going in, I knew not everything we shot would make it into the final picture.
For anyone unfamiliar with what happened behind the scenes, Antoine Fuqua's Michael originally had a very different structure. The movie was supposed to open in 1993, with investigators arriving at Neverland Ranch following allegations that Michael Jackson had sexually abused a minor. The third act would have explored the accusations and their impact on the singer's life. The singer denied the allegations.
However, attorneys for the Michael Jackson estate reportedly found a clause in a settlement with accuser Jordan Chandler that prohibited depicting or mentioning him in a movie. That meant the filmmakers had to remove the original opening and essentially rebuild the final act.
The production allegedly underwent 22 days of additional photography, adding an estimated $10 million to $15 million to its budget. The finished film instead concludes during Michael Jackson's Bad tour, years before the allegations surfaced. Those changes became a major source of criticism when the movie arrived in April.
Given how much work went into recreating his uncle's life, I wondered whether losing those scenes was especially frustrating for Jaafar Jackson, but he doesn’t seem particularly bothered by the situation. He continued:
But for me, it was the most rewarding experience because even the things that weren’t used, the experience I got from them, made me a better actor. I feel like that will happen many more times with other projects. You wish a certain performance was in there and it’s not. That’s something you have to deal with when making a film.
It’s a pretty levelheaded response from someone making his feature-film debut. Of course, there is a considerable difference between losing a couple of scenes because of pacing and having an entire section of your movie rewritten after filming. The latter has to be a strange experience when you've invested so much time in a performance.
Though the fresh-faced star seems to have accepted the process, the question remains whether audiences will ever see any of that unused material. Legal restrictions complicate matters, and Jaafar Jackson's comments don't suggest those scenes will ever be released.
However, another Michael movie is being developed following the first film's extraordinary box office success. The biopic surpassed $1 billion worldwide, and Lionsgate has discussed a sequel that could arrive as early as the 2027 movie calendar or 2028. Jaafar Jackson told the outlet he has not received a firm production date but is ready to return whenever the studio calls.
At least the man behind one of the year's most talked-about films seems to have taken the extensive reworking in stride and found something worthwhile in the experience. And with a sequel potentially on the horizon, he may get another chance to tackle the later chapters of his uncle's complicated life.
