Antoine Fuqua's Michael Jackson biopic starring Jaafar Jackson opens in US theaters April 24, 2026, after its Berlin premiere drew comparisons that Lionsgate and the Jackson family have spent months managing.
Jaafar Jackson has known since childhood that one question would follow him everywhere once the film was released: does he look like his uncle? The short answer, visible in every frame of Antoine Fuqua's "Michael," is yes. The longer answer — whether a physical resemblance translates into a performance that can carry a two-and-a-half-hour studio film about one of the most scrutinised artists of the 20th century — is what American audiences will begin answering when the film opens nationally on 24 April 2026.
The movie premiered at the Berlinale on 10 April 2026 to a standing ovation that lasted three minutes and forty seconds, timed by reporters in the Berlinale Palast. Director Antoine Fuqua, who spent four years developing the project before cameras rolled, called the Berlin reaction "the moment I stopped being afraid." Written by John Logan, the screenplay follows Jackson's life from his earliest years in Gary, Indiana, through the Jackson 5's 1960s Motown recordings and into the beginning of his solo career. It does not cover the 1993 or 2003 sexual abuse allegations in detail, a decision that Fuqua and Lionsgate have defended publicly and that critics have already identified as the film's most contentious structural choice.
Jaafar Jackson, 29, is the son of Jermaine Jackson and the nephew of Michael. His casting was announced in January 2023 after a worldwide search process. He is not a professional actor — "Michael" is his film debut — and he spent two years in preparation, working with movement coaches, studying archival footage of his uncle's early stage performances, and filling in what he described as significant gaps in his personal knowledge of Michael's teenage years. "I grew up hearing stories about my uncle," he told The Hollywood Reporter at the Berlin premiere on 10 April. "But the years before I was born, the years he spent becoming who he became — those I had to research like a stranger."
“Jaafar Jackson, 29, is the son of Jermaine Jackson and the nephew of Michael.”
Michael Jackson biopic · Jaafar Jackson · Antoine Fuqua
Katherine Jackson, Michael's mother and the matriarch of the Jackson family, approved the casting from the project's earliest stages. "He embodies Michael," she said in a statement released when Jaafar's casting was confirmed. The family's co-operation gave Fuqua access to private archival material including home recordings, personal photographs, and recollections from Michael's brothers that other directors pursuing the project had been unable to obtain. Jackie Jackson, Marlon Jackson, and Jermaine Jackson all attended an exclusive early screening in Gary, Indiana — Michael's birthplace — before the Berlin premiere, with Michael's son Prince Jackson also present.
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→Jaafar Jackson: Jaafar Jackson, the son of Jermaine Jackson and Michael Jackson's nephew, plays Michael in the film.
→Antoine Fuqua: Jaafar Jackson, the son of Jermaine Jackson and Michael Jackson's nephew, plays Michael in the film.
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The film opens against a competitive mid-April market. Universal is distributing internationally, Lionsgate domestically. Pre-sale ticket data released by Fandango on 18 April placed "Michael" in the top three advance sales for an April studio release since 2023, suggesting that public curiosity about the film — fuelled in part by controversy — has translated into commercial intent. Analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research projected a domestic opening weekend of $48 million to $62 million, telling Variety on 19 April that the range reflected genuine uncertainty about whether the core Jackson fan base, skewing older, would convert to ticket buyers or remain sceptical. "The biopic is not the record catalogue," Gross said. "The biopic is an interpretation."
The question of interpretation is precisely where the film has attracted its most pointed criticism. Several music and cultural journalists who saw the film in Berlin noted that its treatment of Michael Jackson's childhood — particularly the portrayal of Joe Jackson's controlling and at times abusive management of the Jackson 5 — is unflinching, while its handling of the legal controversies that dominated the later career is notably compressed. Michaels biographer, journalist Randy Taraborrelli, who has written two books on Jackson and was not involved in the film, told the Guardian on 14 April that the decision to step past the allegations "doesn't make it a dishonest film, but it does make it a partial one." Fuqua's response, repeated in multiple interviews since Berlin, is that the film was always conceived as a portrait of the artist rather than a legal chronicle.
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Michael Jackson biopic · Jaafar Jackson · Antoine Fuqua
Jaafar's performance in the concert sequences — particularly a recreation of the 1983 "Motown 25" television performance in which Michael Jackson first debuted the moonwalk to a national audience — has been the most consistently praised element of the film across early reviews. Empire magazine's 10 April review awarded the film four stars and described Jaafar as "so physically precise that the uncanniness becomes the point." The Guardian, in a three-star review that praised the craft while questioning the omissions, called the Motown 25 sequence "the single best five minutes in any music biopic since Bohemian Rhapsody."
Saudi cinemas will screen the film two days before the US release, beginning 22 April. South Africa opens 24 April, concurrent with the US. The question of how the film performs at the box office in its first weekend will set the terms for how Lionsgate manages what it expects to be a long theatrical run built on the Jackson catalogue's global reach.
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Jaafar Jackson, the son of Jermaine Jackson and Michael Jackson's nephew, plays Michael in the film. Born 25 July 1996, Jaafar spent two years preparing for the role, his film debut. He was cast in January 2023 after a worldwide search. His grandmother Katherine Jackson said Jaafar "embodies" her son.
When does the Michael Jackson biopic open in US theaters?
The film, titled simply "Michael," opens in US theaters on 24 April 2026, distributed domestically by Lionsgate and internationally by Universal Pictures. It premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival on 10 April 2026. Saudi cinemas begin screenings on 22 April, two days before the US release.
Why doesn't the Michael Jackson biopic cover the abuse allegations?
Director Antoine Fuqua and screenwriter John Logan designed the film as a portrait of Michael Jackson's artistic development from childhood through his early solo career, not as a legal or biographical chronicle. The film covers his years in the Jackson 5 and the Motown era but does not address the 1993 or 2003 sexual abuse allegations in detail. Fuqua has defended the choice in multiple interviews since the Berlin premiere, saying the film was "always about the artist."
How much could Michael open at the US box office?
Analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research projected a domestic opening weekend of $48 million to $62 million as of 19 April 2026, citing strong Fandango pre-sale data alongside uncertainty about whether the older core Jackson fan base would convert to ticket buyers. The film's opening weekend will be its critical commercial test given Lionsgate's expectation of a long theatrical run.