The Michael Jackson biopic “Michael” shattered box office records in its opening weekend, earning $218. 8 million domestically—the largest debut ever for a biopic. The film, which opened in 64 countries, surpassed “Oppenheimer” and took in $40 million on its domestic opening day, marking the biggest opening day for a biopic and the top box office opening day of 2026. The film’s success ignited renewed controversy.
Dan Reed, director of the 2019 documentary “Leaving Neverland,” publicly stated that Jackson was worse than Jeffrey Epstein. Critics described the biopic as sanitized, but audiences gave it near-perfect exit scores. The Rotten Tomatoes audience score showed a significant gap from critic reviews. Director Antoine Fuqua addressed the controversy directly, saying, “Sometimes people do some nasty things for some money.
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Reed fired back, telling Variety the biopic was “impossible to take seriously as a counter-narrative to Leaving Neverland. ”
The debate traces back to 1993, when 13-year-old Jordan Chandler accused Jackson of sexual abuse. Jackson denied everything. Authorities obtained a warrant to examine his body for matching markings, though reports later conflicted on how closely descriptions aligned.
Jackson settled the civil lawsuit for over $20 million with no admission of guilt. Chandler then declined to testify, leaving prosecutors without their central witness and resulting in no criminal charges. In 2003, a second set of accusations emerged after British journalist Martin Bashir’s documentary “Living with Michael Jackson” aired. Jackson was arrested and charged with 14 counts.
The 2005 criminal trial ended with the jury deliberating for 32 hours across seven days. On June 13, 2005, Jackson was found not guilty on every count. Jackson had filmed his own footage during Bashir’s documentary, releasing a rebuttal called “The Footage You Were Never Meant to See” in February 2003. It showed Bashir complimenting Jackson and calling him a wonderful father.
A reported 14 million people watched the counter-documentary. After Jackson’s death in 2009, Bashir said Jackson’s lifestyle was “unorthodox, but not criminal,” adding, “I never saw any wrongdoing myself. ”
Days after being arrested in December 2003, Jackson sat down with CBS journalist Ed Bradley on “60 Minutes. ” He said, “If I would hurt a child, I would slit my wrists.
I would never hurt a child. ” He claimed people were coming after him for money, saying, “Somewhere greed got in there. ” He acknowledged that sharing a bed with a child would be wrong with bad intentions, adding, “That is not who I am. ”
In 1995, 60 million people watched Jackson and wife Lisa Marie Presley’s interview with Diane Sawyer.
Presley said she never asked Jackson whether the allegations were true because he talked about them constantly on the phone. Details from the 1993 case are less widely known. Before any accusation went public, Jordan’s father Evan Chandler reportedly demanded $20 million from Jackson privately. Jackson refused.
His private detective called it extortion. Evan Chandler also administered sodium amatol—a sedative with hypnotic effects—to his son during a dental procedure. In 2004, when the FBI asked Jordan Chandler to testify at the 2005 trial, he refused, saying he would not testify under any circumstances. A clause in the 1994 settlement legally prohibited Jordan Chandler from being depicted in any film.
The original biopic script had built its entire third act around the 1993 case, and footage had already been shot. When lawyers found the clause in fall 2024, the filmmakers cut the third act, conducted 22 days of emergency reshoots, and added $10–15 million to the $155 million budget. The release was pushed back a full year. The FBI opened an investigation into Jackson in 1992 and actively investigated for nearly 10 years, including tapped phones and bugged hotel rooms.
During the 2003 raids on Neverland Ranch, 16 hard drives were seized and sent for full forensic analysis. Nothing incriminating was found. The FBI released over 600 pages of documents, with two-thirds placing Jackson as a victim of extortion attempts rather than a perpetrator. In December 2004, the FBI closed the investigation, citing no outstanding leads.
In December 2025, the DOJ released over 300,000 pages of Epstein files, including a photo of Jackson standing next to Epstein at Epstein’s Palm Beach home. Jackson’s bodyguard Matt Fiddes said Jackson had been recording music with Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees and was viewing properties in the area. One of the homes on the viewing list happened to be Epstein’s. A viral audio clip claiming actor Macaulay Culkin said Jackson saved children from Epstein’s island was analyzed by two AI detection tools, which rated it very likely AI-generated.
Macaulay Culkin has consistently defended Jackson since 1993. In a 2003 interview with Larry King, Culkin said he and Jackson played video games, and he explained, “Michael Jackson’s bedroom is two stories. It has like three bathrooms. So when I slept in his bedroom, yeah, but you have to understand the whole scenario.
” He described the first allegations by saying, “If someone had done something like that to my kid, I wouldn’t just settle for some money. I’d make sure the guy was in jail. As soon as they got the money, they ran. ”
At the 2005 trial, Culkin testified under oath that he had shared a bed with Jackson over a dozen times between ages 9 and 14, was never touched inappropriately, and called the allegations “absolutely ridiculous.
” Defense attorney Thomas Mesereau said Culkin and Chris Tucker were loyal friends who insisted on testifying despite pressure from their managers. In 2019, Reed’s “Leaving Neverland” aired on HBO. The four-hour documentary relied on the testimonies of Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who claimed Jackson abused them as children. Reed did not interview anyone who contradicted the claims and admitted he chose not to use footage that would have challenged his subjects.
Both men changed their stories over time. Robson told police nothing happened in 1993 and testified as Jackson’s defense witness in 2005, saying he had slept in Jackson’s bedroom more than 20 times without being touched. Safechuck also told investigators nothing happened. After Jackson died in 2009, Robson filed a lawsuit in 2013 claiming seven years of abuse starting at age seven.
Safechuck filed his own in 2014. Reed admitted Safechuck’s timeline had a problem: Safechuck claimed abuse occurred in an upstairs room at Neverland’s train station, but construction permits showed the station wasn’t approved until September 1993 and didn’t open until 1994—two years after Safechuck said the abuse ended. In 2024, “Leaving Neverland” was pulled from HBO after a settlement and is no longer commercially available. Robson and Safechuck are now suing Jackson’s companies for $400 million, with a trial set for November 2026.
Reed is reportedly working on a third documentary to cover the trial. New federal filings in February 2026 alleged years of ongoing conduct and described multi-million-dollar payoffs that stopped in 2025. The Financial Times reported that the Jackson estate quietly settled with a separate group of accusers for $16. 5 million in 2020.
Lionsgate has described the biopic as effectively part one, leaving the door open for a sequel.
