The Michael Jackson Biopic Is Here, And It’s Already Ripping Open the Biggest Debate in Pop Culture

The King of Pop is back on screen. But what happens when the movie refuses to show the whole king?

Let’s be honest, there’s no celebrity on the planet who makes the “separate the art from the artist” debate more uncomfortable than Michael Jackson. And right on cue, with the biopic Michael hitting theaters on April 24, 2026, we’re all being dragged back into that conversation whether we like it or not.

And honestly? It’s one worth having.

A Film That Took Forever to Get Here

First, a quick recap of just how bumpy the road to this movie has been because the drama behind the scenes is almost as messy as the drama the film is supposedly about.

Michael is directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, The Equalizer) and written by Oscar-nominated screenwriter John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator). Jackson’s own nephew, Jaafar Jackson, steps into the role of his uncle, supported by an all-star cast: Colman Domingo as Joe Jackson, Nia Long as Katherine Jackson, Miles Teller as long-time adviser John Branca, Larenz Tate as Berry Gordy, and Kat Graham as Diana Ross.

With a reported production budget of $155 million, it’s one of the most expensive music biopics ever made. The studio clearly believes in Michael Jackson’s star power, and the numbers back that up. When the trailer dropped in November 2025, it racked up over 116 million views in a single day. No music biopic trailer had ever done that before.

But here’s the thing: the film was originally supposed to come out in April 2025. Then, in October 2025. Then April 2026. Why all the delays?

Well… that’s where it gets complicated.

The Scene That Got Cut And Why It Matters

The original script for Michael was reportedly bold. It started and ended with the 1993 allegations made by Jordan Chandler, using that storyline as the film’s central framing device. Director Fuqua apparently even filmed an entire action sequence recreating the infamous Neverland Ranch police raid, complete with the strip-search of Jackson.

Then the Jackson estate stepped in.

Turns out there was a legal clause buried in the Chandler family’s settlement that prohibited the estate from dramatizing that story. The estate, which had approved the film and greenlit the original script, had apparently missed that detail. Cue: 22 days of reshoots, a scramble for a new ending, and the studio briefly considering splitting the whole thing into two films.

What are we getting on April 24? A film that covers Michael Jackson’s life from his childhood in the Jackson 5 up through 1988, conveniently stopping just before the first allegations emerged in 1993.

Colman Domingo explained it plainly on the Today show: “The film takes place from the ’60s to 1988, so it does not go into the first allegations. We centered it on the makings of Michael.” He also mentioned the possibility of a sequel that might cover what came later, if the price is right, apparently.

So yes. The most controversial chapters of Michael Jackson’s life? Saved for a hypothetical Part 2 that may or may not ever happen.

What the Critics Are Saying

Early reviews are… mixed, in the most polite sense of the word.

Variety called it “a surprisingly effective middle-of-the-road biopic” while acknowledging that skipping the abuse allegations leaves “a hint of a void at its center.” Translation: it’s entertaining, but you’ll feel the absence of the harder truths.

Rolling Stone was less generous, writing that the film functions less like a biopic and more like a celebration, “The Passion of St. Michael,” which focused on Jackson’s suffering and talent but was unwilling to sit with the complexity of the full man.

The Guardian called it “a frustratingly shallow, inert picture” that can’t bring itself to honestly portray the abuse Jackson suffered as a child at the hands of his father, which, critics argue, would have at least given audiences context for understanding the troubled adult he became.

The New York Times noted that even the smaller controversies got a glossy makeover: the scalp-burning incident during a Pepsi commercial shoot gets reframed as a story of triumph and resilience, with no mention of the painkiller addiction that grew out of it.

Meanwhile, Leaving Neverland director Dan Reed, whose 2019 HBO documentary laid out detailed allegations of child sexual abuse by Jackson, called the film “a complete whitewash” and said it contains “complete lies,” pointing out that you never see Jackson alone with any young boys, despite that being a documented reality of his life.

Fan reception, however? Projected to be a box office smash. Because of course it is. After Leaving Neverland came out in 2019, Jackson’s music streaming numbers actually went up. The Broadway musical based on his songs became a massive hit. The King of Pop, it seems, is bulletproof.

The Debate That Refuses to Die

Here’s the core question, and it’s one that’s been swirling since 2019 when Leaving Neverland first aired: Can you or should you separate the art from the artist?

And with Michael Jackson, it’s genuinely one of the hardest versions of this question to answer.

On one hand, the cultural footprint of his work is almost impossible to overstate. Thriller is still the best-selling album of all time. The moonwalk. The Super Bowl halftime show set the template for every halftime show that followed. His influence runs through nearly every major pop artist of the past 40 years, from Justin Timberlake and Bruno Mars to Beyoncé and The Weeknd. You cannot tell the story of pop music without Michael Jackson. Period.

On the other hand, the allegations against him are serious, extensive, and thanks to Leaving Neverland, documented in harrowing detail by two men, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who say Jackson abused them as children. Jackson was acquitted in a 2005 criminal trial. He denied all allegations until his death in 2009. But the civil cases brought by Robson and Safechuck have continued through the courts.

And now we have a $155 million film, approved by his estate, that ends its story before the allegations even begin.

Leaving Neverland director Dan Reed put it bluntly when asked about the biopic’s opening weekend: “It says that people don’t care that he was a child molester. Literally, people just don’t care.” He believes that simplistic debunking videos online have given many viewers convenient “permission” to keep enjoying Jackson’s music and legacy without sitting with the discomfort of the allegations.

That’s harsh. But is he wrong?

The Deeper Problem With Sanitized Biopics

What Michael represents is actually part of a larger trend that’s worth examining: the estate-approved biopic.

When the subject’s estate controls or heavily influences a biopic, you’re not getting a biography. You’re getting a brand exercise. Bohemian Rhapsody (made by the same producer, Graham King) was criticized for glossing over Freddie Mercury’s HIV diagnosis and the messier parts of his life. Elvis was a little more daring, but even that had Priscilla Presley signing off and shaping the narrative.

The problem with making a film that presents only the glorious, sympathetic version of a complex person is that it doesn’t actually honor them. It turns them into an icon instead of a human being. And ironically, it often makes for a worse film because drama lives in contradiction, in darkness, in complexity.

Paris Jackson, Michael’s own daughter, publicly distanced herself from the film, writing on Instagram that she had “zero percent involvement.” She read an early draft, gave feedback that was ignored, and moved on. She noted that the film caters to “a very specific section” of her father’s fanbase who “still live in the fantasy.”

That’s pretty damning coming from his kid.

So, Where Does That Leave Us?

Look, you can think of two things at once. You can believe that Thriller is one of the greatest albums ever made, and also believe that the man who made it did terrible things. You can feel profound joy listening to Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough and still feel the weight of unanswered questions. That discomfort doesn’t mean you have to throw away your record collection, but it also doesn’t mean you get to pretend the questions don’t exist.

What’s frustrating about Michael the film isn’t that it celebrates his artistry. Of course, a biopic about the King of Pop should do that. It’s that it goes out of its way to tell only the part of the story that the people who profit from his legacy want told.

That’s not a biography. That’s PR.

The real conversation the one about how we hold both the genius and the darkness in our heads at the same time, the one about what we owe to alleged victims when the accused is no longer alive, the one about whether streaming someone’s music is an endorsement of their worst acts that conversation is happening in the comment sections, in the think pieces, on the way home from the theater.

And that’s the most Michael Jackson thing imaginable. The man was always bigger than any single story you tried to tell about him.

Michael is in theaters now. Whatever you think about the man or the film, the debate it sparked isn’t going anywhere.