The King of Pop is getting a new feature film dedicated to his life in the spotlight, and it’s got quite a team behind it. According to Deadline Bohemian Rhapsody producer Graham King has secured the rights to make a film about the iconic singer form the Michael Jackson estate, which will give him access to all of the star’s musical catalog. The film doesn’t have a name or much in the way of details yet, but it does have a writer, as King has brought on Oscar-nominated writer John Logan to write the script. The Michael Jackson project does not have a home yet at a studio.
Sources say that the films are not going to be a sanitized retelling of Jackson’s life and story, and the duo has expertise in this type of thing. King and Logan also worked together on Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator, which took a look at the life of Howard Hughes, a quite complicated figure. Now they’ll turn that same attention to detail and storytelling to Jackson.
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Jackson’s life story is one of the most well known amongst pop culture icons, and it will be interesting to see what King and Logan do with that story. Evidently the Jackson estate will not be involved with the writing of the screenplay in any way, but they will share the script with the estate before placing it at a studio.
King’s last run at a telling the story of a music icon netted box office results and an Oscar bid, as Bohemian Rhapsody put the spotlight on Queen frontman Freddie Mercury. The film brought in $903 million at the box office and also resulted in an Oscar win for Freddie Mercury actor Rami Malek.
As for Jackson, the icon is known as the King of Pop for a reason, selling millions of records and becoming arguably the biggest star on the planet for a while, but he’s also known for quite a few controversial things, some of which were covered in the recent documentary Leaving Neverland. It remains to be seen how King and Logan approach those subjects and whether or not that will sit well with audiences.
