Dire reviews and controversy: Why the Michael Jackson movie broke box-office records

Michael, the biopic tracking the early years of Michael Jackson, opened to dire reviews and criticism over its silence on the child sex abuse allegations levelled at the music superstar. The fans, though, don’t care; they made Michael a box office smash. Its first weekend broke records, with the film scoring the biggest opening of all time for any musical biopic. It stars Jaafar Jackson, who does a good job channelling his late uncle Michael, and the music is wall-to-wall with brief detours into some aspects of Jackson’s odd life, including his obsession with Peter Pan, his first nose job and his acquisition of Bubbles the chimpanzee. Originally the script included the case of one of the boys who alleged sex abuse, but that was cut. So without the truth of Jackson’s life, what is the point of this biopic? And why is Hollywood so fixated on musical biopics? Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by John Casey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Dire reviews and controversy: Why the Michael Jackson movie broke box-office records is an episode from In The News by dconlon@irishtimes.com .

This episode is 27:26 long.

This episode was published on May 1, 2026.

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