Deadline is reporting that Oscar-winning producer Graham King (The Departed, Bohemian Rhapsody, Hugo) has acquired the rights to make a feature of Michael Jackson’s life with access to all of his music from the Michael Jackson estate. Oscar-nominee John Logan (Hugo, The Aviator, Gladiator) will write the script for King’s GK Films.
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The outlet notes that the film “isn’t intended to be a sanitized rendering” of the pop icon’s life, especially since his life is well-known and will not be ignored in a film that will apparently span Jackson’s entire life before his death in June 2009 at age 50.
Jackson became a star as a child and a global icon as an adult, but his childhood was not an easy one, and in adulthood, he had to defend himself and paid out settlements over allegations of sexual abuse of child companions who routinely stayed at his house for sleepovers.
This was recently depicted in Leaving Neverland, the Emmy-winning HBO documentary that is now involved in a $100 million lawsuit with the Jackson estate.
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Logan, who created the spinoff Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, and King, whose upcoming projects include Tomb Raider 2 and The Departed TV series, will shape the script before the project is picked up by a studio. King’s currently untitled movie is not the only Michael Jackson project in the works as a Broadway musical based on Jackson’s story and his music is also in development.
(Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage via Getty Images)
