Billboard Women in Music 2025
Antoine Fuqua’s upcoming Michael Jackson biopic, “Michael,” may be split into two movies. As a result, the Lionsgate and Universal Pictures International project will likely push its current Oct. 3 release date.
The film stars Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson, who makes his screen debut in the film. Colman Domingo and Nia Long will play family heads Joe and Katherine Jackson, while Miles Teller will play Jackson’s attorney and advisor John Branca. Larenz Tate will star as Motown Records founder Berry Gordy, while Laura Harrier will play portray pioneering female music executive Suzanne de Passe and Kat Graham will appear as the legendary Diana Ross.
Other cast members include Jessica Sula (“Split”) as La Toya Jackson, Michael’s older sister; Liv Symone (“Power Book III: Raising Kanan”) as Gladys Knight; Kevin Shinick (“Robot Chicken”) as Dick Clark; KeiLyn Durrel Jones (“The Other Two,” “How to Die Alone”) as Jackson’s former security-turned-trusted friend and confidante Bill Bray; and Kendrick Sampson (“Insecure”) as industry icon Quincy Jones, who first met Michael Jackson when he was just 12 years old. The pair would go on to collaborate on three of Michael’s most successful albums: 1979’s “Off the Wall,” 1982’s “Thriller” and 1987’s “Bad.”
“I’m always curious about the making of a person. With Joe Jackson, we have an idea about him, or the way he moved through the world and was a very strong and formidable human being. And for me, I was like, ‘Yeah, but he also created some legendary performers and this legacy of a family.’ I’m like, I want to know who that man is,” Domingo told Variety earlier this year. “I had to go on the inside and find out everything that I love about Joe Jackson: what his tools were for survival in the world, the tools that he gave to his children, whether it was the way he reared his children or being from where he was, I want to examine all of that. It was about really building a very complex, complete human being with a soul. I was very happy to lend whatever I could to play Joe Jackson.”
Deadline was first to report the news.
More to come…
