Jaafar Jackson Says MICHAEL Sequel Will Confront Child Abuse Allegations and Let Michael’s Voice Be Heard — GeekTyrant
The first Michael movie only told half the story of Michael Jackson. The sequel is heading into much more complicated territory.
With the second Michael movie getting closer to production, Jaafar Jackson has confirmed that the next chapter of the Michael Jackson biopic will address the child abuse allegations and intense public scrutiny that surrounded his uncle during the 1990s.
For Jaafar and the Jackson family, the hope is that the sequel will also give audiences a chance to hear Michael’s perspective on a period of his life that has been examined and debated for decades.
The first Michael became a monster hit at the box office this summer, passing $1 billion worldwide. Despite its lengthy runtime, the film only covered the first portion of Michael Jackson’s life and career, following his rise from his childhood through the release of Bad in 1987.
That stopping point was significant. Michael received his first child abuse allegation in 1993, meaning the filmmakers saved one of the most controversial and difficult periods of his life for the second movie.
Jaafar, who plays his uncle in the films, told GQ Middle East that he doesn’t have much control over how the screenplay is written. Still, he hopes the sequel offers more insight into Michael’s side of the story, something he feels has often been missing from the larger public conversation.
“It’s someone else’s story. It’s someone else’s idea of what it is, and it’s mainly driven by an agenda. And that’s really the issue we’ve been having as a family – not having Michael’s voice being heard. I think that’s very, very important, especially in the late years.”
That gives the second Michael movie a considerably tougher job than the first. The story will move beyond the rise of a global superstar and into the allegations, media attention and controversy that dominated much of the conversation surrounding Michael during his later years.
For Jaafar, splitting the story across two movies also gives audiences more time to understand the person he believes his uncle was before reaching that point.
“This first film focuses on Michael from his roots. So you get that idea of who he was before he had all the success and became the icon that people are familiar with, you understand who he was as a human being first, because at the end of the day, that’s who he was in the ’90s until he passed.
He never changed that purity, that sense of always wanting to find the good in other people. And no matter all the stuff he went through, how he was treated, what things were said about him, he never stopped treating people with kindness.
“He never stopped believing in and wanting to look for the good in people… even though he was broken, his heart still stayed the same… I hope that this is felt in the second movie.”
The sequel now faces the challenge that has been waiting for this project from the beginning. Telling Michael Jackson’s story means dealing with the child abuse allegations rather than simply focusing on his music, performances and massive cultural impact.
How the movie chooses to portray those allegations, the people involved and Michael’s response will likely become one of the biggest points of discussion surrounding the sequel. Jaafar’s comments make it clear that he wants his uncle’s perspective to have a meaningful place in that story.
After the first Michael pulled in more than $1 billion globally, there’s clearly a huge audience ready to see the rest of the story. The second movie, however, will be entering much more sensitive territory, and there will be plenty of attention on exactly how it handles it.
For Jaafar Jackson, the goal is to give audiences more context about the man he knew and allow Michael’s voice to be part of the conversation.
