Antoine Fuqua to direct Michael Jackson biopic for Lionsgate
Deadline reports that Antoine Fuqua is set to direct Michael, a Lionsgate drama telling the complex life story of the iconic singer Michael Jackson.
A script is in by John Logan, and the film will be produced by Graham King, who turned the Freddie Mercury Queen story into the blockbuster Oscar Best Picture-nominated Bohemian Rhapsody. GK Films will produce alongside the co-executors of Jackson’s estate, John Branca and John McClain.
The site states that the film will undoubtedly make the most of Jackson’s musical accomplishments and re-creation of seminal career highlights beginning with the days he fronted The Jackson 5 as a child to his hitmaking work as the biggest musical star in the world as an adult. But it will also deal squarely with the pedophile accusations that dogged his later years up to his death in 2009 at age 50, from cardiac arrest caused by a cocktail of sedatives.
Things are moving fast on Michael. Fuqua is currently finishing The Equalizer 3 with Denzel Washington in Italy, and then he will turn his attention to this one. Production will begin later this year, and we’ve heard that Fuqua will draft his Emancipation and Equalizer 3 cinematographer Robert Richardson to be by his side.