It’s offical: Michael, Antoine Fuqua‘s anticipated Michael Jackson musical biopic, has beat it out of this year’s Oscar race.
As Gold Derby reported months ago, the Lionsgate film made an expected move from a planned Oct. 3 release to April 24, 2026.
Michael had been targeted as potential awards bait coming into 2025, but its fate seemed iffy when it was omitted from Lionsgate’s CinemaCon presentation to movie theater exhibitors in April. This was a 180 from last year’s CinemaCon when the studio shared a first look at Michael.
Weeks later, Lionsgate executives said the film was likely to shift into 2026 amid reports that the four-hour cut would be reconfigured as a two-part release. The two-fer is no longer on the table; instead, Fuqua has been given extra time to chop Micheal down to a single film with a manageable running time.
The movie has been beset with controversy. In January, Puck reported that Michael, which wrapped production last May, faced extensive reshoots because of an alleged agreement signed between the late superstar’s estate and a then-underage accuser who claimed Jackson had sexually abused him. Puck also reported the film would not sweep the sexual abuse allegations made against Jackson in the early 1990s under the rug. Reshoots reportedly started in March and production costs ballooned to more than $150 million.
Produced by Graham King, who won an Oscar for The Departed and was nominated for Bohemian Rhapsody, Michael stars Jaafar Jackson, Jackson’s nephew and the son of Jermaine Jackson, as the King of Pop as it tracks the singer’s career from his start in the Jackson 5 to his death in 2009. Colman Domingo, seeking his third Oscar nomination, plays family patriarch Joe Jackson, while Nia Long plays matriarch Katherine Jackson. The cast also includes Miles Teller, Kat Graham, Larenz Tate, Laura Harrier, and Derek Luke. Three-time Oscar nominee John Logan wrote the script.