Bohemian Rhapsody Producer Prepping Michael Jackson Biopic
The Michael Jackson Estate is banking on the belief that the late pop superstar has emerged relatively unscathed from this year’s renewed focus on allegations of serial pedophilia via HBO’s Leaving Neverland documentary. Not only is the self-proclaimed King Of Pop getting a biographical jukebox musical next year — just yesterday we learned he’d be portrayed on stage by Ephraim Sykes — now comes news that a scripted motion picture is on the way too, helmed by one of the producers of the fraught but massively popular Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.
As Deadline reports, Jackson’s estate has sold the rights for his life story to producer Graham King, who helmed Bohemian Rhapsody and also has a Bee Gees biopic in the works. Don’t stop ’til you get enough, Graham!
King’s production company GK Films has retained screenwriter John Logan, whose previous collaborations with King include The Aviator, Martin Scorsese’s Howard Hughes biopic starring Leonardo DiCaprio. King and Logan will reportedly write the script before shopping the project to studios.
According to Deadline, the movie “isn’t intended to be a sanitized rendering of Jackson’s life.” Furthermore, “the complexity of Jackson’s life is well known and will not be ignored in a film that will span his entire life, which ended with his tragic death in June 2009 at age 50.” But will they leave in the part where Jackson took a young boy shopping for an engagement ring?