Michael arrives with a $155–200 million budget, a 128-minute runtime, and a director, Antoine Fuqua, who knows how to stage a fight. What it does not arrive with is a point of view. The film covers Michael Jackson from a Gary, Indiana living room in 1966 to the Bad World Tour in the late 1980s, and in that whole span it never decides what it thinks of him. Jaafar Jackson, his nephew, is genuinely good in the title role. The movie around him is not.
Trailer, via Lionsgate Movies.
A Steel Worker’s Sons in Gary
The early stretch is the strongest. Joseph Jackson, played by Colman Domingo, assembles Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael into the Jackson 5, with Michael on lead vocals. Domingo plays him as a man who believes he owns his children’s futures, and the film lets that belief sit without much comment.
The discovery scene works because the source material is simple: Suzanne De Passe, played by Laura Harrier, finds the group in Chicago in 1968. They sign with Motown a year later. Success moves the family out of Gary and into the Hayvenhurst mansion in Encino, California, in 1971.
Motown founder Berry Gordy, played by Larenz Tate, tells the family Michael has more potential alone. That is the hinge of the whole film, and it lands.
Off the Wall and the Fax
In 1978, Michael signs with Epic Records for Off the Wall, with Quincy Jones, played by Kendrick Sampson, producing. Joseph restricts the solo career and forces Michael onto the Triumph Tour with his brothers.
Michael, insecure about his appearance and developing vitiligo, gets a rhinoplasty. After an argument with Joseph, his bodyguard Bill Bray, played by KeiLyn Durrel Jones, tells him to forge his own path. In 1981 he hires John Branca, played by Miles Teller, as his attorney. Branca helps him fire Joseph by fax.
That fax should be a great scene. It plays like a paperwork montage. The film keeps reaching for moments and then declining to dramatize them.
Beat It, Billie Jean, and MTV
The middle act is where Michael starts to move. After watching a news report on the Crips–Bloods gang war, he hires members of both gangs to appear in the “Beat It” video. Thriller breaks worldwide sales records. He performs “Billie Jean” at Motown 25.
In New York, Michael and Branca convince CBS Records president Walter Yetnikoff, played by Mike Myers, to get MTV to play Michael’s videos. MTV does not play videos by black artists. The film treats that fight as a scheduling problem, and Yetnikoff as a joke delivery system. Myers is badly miscast.
Meanwhile Joseph meets boxing promoter Don King and proposes the 1984 Victory Tour. The film sets up the last act here, then cuts away.
What the Reshoots Cost
The production history is part of the review, because you can see it on screen.
- Development began in November 2019, when Graham King secured the rights, with John Logan attached to write.
- Lionsgate announced the film in February 2022.
- Fuqua was announced as director in January 2023, with Jaafar Jackson cast as Michael.
- Principal photography ran from January to May 2024, after delays from the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike.
- A clause found in a legal settlement forced references to the 1993 child sexual abuse allegations to be removed. The third act was revised and reshoots took place in June 2025.
That last item is the one that matters. References to the allegations were removed and the third act was revised. A story about a man whose fame was inseparable from what was said about him cannot skip the saying and stay coherent. The third act does not resolve. It stops.
The Release Schedule
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| November 2019 | Graham King secures rights; Logan attached to write |
| February 2022 | Lionsgate announces the film |
| January 2023 | Fuqua named director; Jaafar Jackson cast |
| January–May 2024 | Principal photography |
| June 2025 | Reshoots after third-act revision |
| April 10, 2026 | Premiere at the Uber Eats Music Hall, Berlin |
| April 22, 2026 | UK release, Universal Pictures |
| April 24, 2026 | US release, Lionsgate |
The Berlin premiere venue is the Uber Eats Music Hall. That is not the film’s fault. It is still funny.
Jaafar Jackson Is the Reason to Watch
Jaafar Jackson and Juliano Krue Valdi, who plays young Michael, are both making their film debuts. Jaafar has the walk, the tilt of the head, and enough stillness to suggest a person behind the image. He is the only element the reviews agreed on, and they are right.
The supporting cast is uneven in ways that feel like direction rather than talent. Domingo is excellent and underserved by the back half. Nia Long, as Katherine Jackson, has almost nothing to do. Teller’s Branca is a function, not a character. Myers is a genuine error.
Fuqua has made a film that is competent at every technical level and empty at the center. The choreography is recreated with care. The period detail is thorough. None of it accumulates.
The Score
Michael premiered in Berlin on April 10, 2026, and opened in the UK on April 22 and the US on April 24. It received generally negative reviews. The critical consensus praised Jaafar Jackson’s performance and called the story sanitized. That is the correct read.
This is a $155–200 million film about the most influential artist the world has ever known, made by people who were clearly afraid of him. The fear is not cowardice exactly. It is the logical result of a legal settlement clause and a studio that wanted a product rather than an argument.
What we get instead is a highlight reel with a bodyguard, a lawyer, and a fax machine. The Jackson 5 years have warmth. The Thriller years have momentum. Everything after that has the shape of a film that was cut apart and put back together by people answering to lawyers.
There is no scene here that tells you what Michael Jackson cost, or what he was worth, or why anyone should care in 2026. The tagline says “Discover the making of a king.” The film shows you the coronation and skips the throne room.
Jaafar Jackson will work again, and should. Fuqua and Logan have made the safest possible version of an unsafe story, and the result is a film that runs 128 minutes and says nothing. That is the verdict, and it is not close.
3.9 of 10 (Metacritic 39/100).
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