They came in their sequined gloves and shiny loafers, their black fedoras and red leather jackets. They danced in the aisles and sang the hits at the top of their lungs. They moonwalked, kicked their legs and leaned like smooth criminals. They let bygones be bygones.<\/p>\n
Critics have largely savaged \u201cMichael,\u201d the biopic of Michael Jackson that opened on Friday in theaters across the globe. One dismissed it<\/a> as a \u201cbland and barely competent daytime TV movie\u201d; another as not a movie at all but a \u201cfilmed playlist in search of a story<\/a>.\u201d Yet to the legions of Jackson\u2019s fans, the glossy film was just cause to celebrate the greatest pop star of all time.<\/p>\n Over the past few days, Jackson fans turned their local theaters into makeshift concert halls. Admirers broke out into dance at a showing in London. Others shimmied and spun in the aisles<\/a> in Atlanta.<\/p>\n Countless fans dressed up as Jackson, including Grace Acosta, 35, who could not contain her excitement as she rushed into a movie theater in the Union Square neighborhood of Manhattan on Sunday, sporting a red \u201cThriller\u201d jacket and matching pants.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one will ever compare to Michael Jackson,\u201d she said as she dismissed talk of the allegations that have trailed the singer for years. \u201cI believe that Michael Jackson never did something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, much of the criticism of the film, which the Jackson estate approved, has come from the fact that its story ends in 1988, to many people a too-convenient sidestepping of the accusations of child sexual abuse that later emerged (including as recently as this year<\/a>). Yet, as Adam Fogelson, the chairman of Lionsgate, the studio that made the film, said in a recent statement, \u201cIf you give audiences what they want, they will come.\u201d<\/p>\n Audiences more than showed up<\/a> for the film\u2019s opening weekend. The movie was on pace to earn over $217 million worldwide in those initial three days. In the United States and Canada, it raked in an estimated $97 million, beating the record of $82.4 million for a biopic set by \u201cOppenheimer\u201d in 2023, even when adjusted for inflation.<\/p>\n \u201cMichael,\u201d directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by John Logan, recounts roughly the first three decades of Jackson\u2019s life, including his childhood in Gary, Ind., and his time performing with his brothers as part of the Jackson 5. His nephew Jaafar Jackson, the son of Jermaine Jackson, portrays him in the movie, and most of Michael Jackson\u2019s siblings are executive producers.<\/p>\n But a few, including Janet Jackson, who is not even a character in the film, are not. Clearly, some family members disagree that a more acceptable version of the singer\u2019s story (the film also omits Jackson\u2019s struggles with scalp surgery after enduring third-degree burns while filming a Pepsi commercial in 1984 and his subsequent addiction to painkillers) was the right move.<\/p>\n Jackson\u2019s daughter, Paris, said in an Instagram story last year<\/a> that \u201cMichael\u201d contained not only inaccuracies but \u201cfull-blown lies.\u201d The film, she said, \u201cpanders to a very specific section of my dad\u2019s fandom that still lives in a fantasy.\u201d<\/p>\n The filmmakers had, in fact, planned to depict accusations of sexual molestation from a 13-year-old boy, claims made in a lawsuit that Jackson settled for more than $20 million in 1994 (while denying any wrongdoing). But then lawyers from Jackson\u2019s estate realized that the settlement\u2019s terms<\/a> prohibited the publicizing of those events. A substantial portion of the film was scrapped and reworked.<\/p>\n