Antoine Fuqua has questioned whether Michael Jackson actually committed the acts he is accused of and has cast doubt on abuse allegations.
Antoine Fuqua spent millions remaking his Michael Jackson biopic after discovering a clause that forced him to cut the film’s entire opening act.
The director’s original vision began with a police raid on Neverland Ranch in 1993, depicting Jackson “stripped naked and treated like an animal, like a monster.”
But attorneys for the Jackson estate realized that the settlement agreement with accuser Jordan Chandler contained language that prohibited him from being depicted or mentioned in any film.
That means everything has to happen, and fast. Last June, reshoots cost as much as $15 million and took 22 days to completely restructure the storyline.
Fuqua and his cast regrouped and rebuilt the film’s dramatic foundations, essentially starting from scratch, with a new ending that focused on the peak of Jackson’s career and the strained relationship between him and his father, Joe.
According to The New Yorker, Fuqua expressed doubts about some of the accusations leveled against Jackson over the years, noting that “I always pause when I hear things about us, especially black people, especially in a position.”
Although five accusers came forward and Jackson himself publicly discussed sleeping with boys, the director did not believe Jackson did what he was accused of doing.
In 2005, Jackson faced 10 charges for allegedly abusing a 13-year-old child before being acquitted, and the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland brought forward two other accusers to tell their own stories.
Fuqua expressed particular skepticism about some of the accuser’s parents, singling out Jordan Chandler’s father who was recorded threatening to ensure Jackson was “incredibly humiliated.”
“Sometimes people do dirty things for some money,” Fuqua said when discussing the motivations behind the various accusations.
The Jackson estate footed the entire reshoot bill because errors by their legal team resulted in necessary changes, essentially absorbing the cost of restructuring the entire third act.
“Mic” opens Friday from Lionsgate, and critics are already weighing in on whether the film will succeed as a successful biopic despite its controversial production.
