Michael

The all-time largest grossing opening weekend for a biopic in North America belongs to Michael. This 2026 film covers the first 20-years or so of Michael Jackson's career as one of the biggest icons in the history of music. Join co-hosts Jon and Mark as they travel from the small club shows by the Jackson 5 in the late 1960s, up to his solo Bad tour in 1988. You may encounter the odd llama or giraffe along the way.

With love, try harder!

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Jon (00:00)
tonight on the Rock N' Roll Theatre podcast, the king of Michael, the Michael Jackson biopic.

Hello everybody, welcome back to the Rock N' Roll Theatre Podcast. My name is Jon, I'm joined by my brother Mark for each episode here where we look at music, pop culture, rock and roll, all sorts of fun stuff. today we're tackling the brand new Michael Jackson biopic, Michael.

Mark (00:33)
Michael was released on April 24th, 2026, rated PG or PG-13, depending on the source that you're looking at. It has a running time of two hours, seven minutes. It's classified as a biography drama music movie. It was directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by Jon Logan. The budget for Michael was somewhere between $165 to $200 million.

which makes it one of the most expensive biopics of all time. And its current box office return is at $227 million at the time of this recording, and it's only been out for a few days. So, this movie has captured the number one spot in ticket sales all time for a biopic in its opening weekend in North America.

Jon (01:23)
To say Michael Jackson is the biggest artist we've covered yet on the podcast would almost be an understatement. I was alive at the time of Thriller. I was in elementary school. I remember when it came out. I remember what a crazy phenomenon it became. Michael Jackson was the most famous person on the planet in the 1980s when I was growing up. Everybody knew his songs. They were everywhere. He was everywhere. Commercials everywhere. We're gonna get into all the stuff that he got up to.

Mark (01:49)
The film tells the story of Michael Jackson's beginnings with the Jackson Five, that's his family band, in the late 1960s, all the way up to his bad world tour in 1988 as a solo artist. It stars Jaafar Jackson, who is Michael Jackson's nephew, in the lead role and he delivers an exceptional performance, especially considering this is his theatrical debut, while looking nearly identical to the real Michael Jackson.

It's also worth noting all vocals in the performance scenes use Michael Jackson's original recordings rather than new vocal performances.

Jon (02:24)
But with everything Michael Jackson, this is where we're at today with his estate. There was numerous lawsuits, candor claims, this claim, that claim from family members. People didn't want to be in the movie. We're going to talk about that for sure. Always when you deal with the Jackson family, there's always this sense of things just are a little bit off and things aren't really as they seem. And there's always all this stuff behind the scenes with this person suing this person, this person's mad about that. And that definitely played into the making of this film.

do reshoots. The reshoots cost over $15 million. There was a lot of stuff left out, but a lot of good stuff in there too as well. But before we get to all things, Michael, just a very, very quick favor from us here at the Rock N' Roll Theatre. If you could like, subscribe, comment, check us out on YouTube and TikTok. We got all sorts of cool little short videos up over there. Little things like that really help us out. But for now, Michael.

And we start off strong right from the opening credits. We hear, wanna be starting something, huge Michael Jackson hit off of Thriller. And we hear a crowd cheering and there's chanting, Michael, Michael,

He's backstage getting ready to go on for a concert. But I also notice he's in his bad era costume and the crowd keeps chanting Michael, Michael, Michael. But then we kind of fade out and we go right back to the beginning. We go to Gary, InDiana in 1966 where we see the young Jackson five practicing in their living room. And right off the start, their father, Joseph, who was the manager and kind of the brain trust behind the original Jackson five

He's definitely setting a hard pace for the boys, making them repeat every note, every dance step to make sure everything is perfect. He's kind of being a jerk about it too, not really, know. Joseph's not known to have a soft hand and we'll get into that in a minute. But he sees this as a way out of poverty. Gary InDiana, 1966, he doesn't see a lot of opportunities for himself or his boys. And he figures entertainment might be the one thing we could really do. And he lets the boys know, you don't know hard work yet. And he has them line up against the wall in this kind of sort of trust game where they put their finger

tips to the wall and he basically tells them you can only depend on your brothers nobody else in this world and he sells on calling them Jackson 5.

Mark (04:32)
So we see the Jackson 5 begin to play some club shows. They're out at night, which is a bit of an odd scene considering Michael, who is doing the lead vocals, is probably 10 years old, maybe less than 10 years old, seven, eight years old, to see kids that young in a club at night. It's a different world for sure. But the crowds are into it, they're liking it. Joseph sees the reaction and he's thinking, okay, okay, this is making sense. My ideas are starting to take form here.

Jon (04:48)
Different world, different world back then.

Mark (05:00)
In terms of what we're hearing, we're hearing a blend of rock, pop, there's a bit of soul, R &B. We would say it may be an influence of James Brown.

Even when they get home from playing club shows, it's time to rehearse some more. The boys can't believe it. They're like, you know, we just performed, went well, they're all happy. And Joseph's like, nope, nope, we gotta do better. You thought that was good, we gotta do better. We see a few terrible examples of parenting here by Joseph where he starts abusing Michael. That is definitely not cool. He also refers to him as having a big nose. And this comes into play a little bit later in the film.

Away from this though, we see that Michael is really into reading about Peter Pan. That's one of his favorite storybooks. We also see other Disney characters and things of that nature. We also notice that Michael is really starting to hone in on James Brown dance moves. He's really nailing them when he's performing. And we're getting a glimpse into their...

set up backstage and their mom is actually the one responsible for doing all their different outfits that they're wearing during their performances.

Jon (06:05)
Fun fact about their stage clothes, a lot of the costumes you see in the movie were actually on loan from Lady Gaga. Apparently she is a huge collector of Michael memorabilia and had a lot of like the big pieces that you would want for this movie. So a lot of the things you see in this film, not all, but some are actual original Michael Jackson pieces from the archives. I thought that was pretty cool and pretty interesting. Thanks Lady Gaga.

Then we move on to Chicago 1968. The boys have risen up here in the ranks of doing club gigs and now they're onto a bigger theatre. Back in the day, these theatre shows were huge in America. We had a whole bunch of different bands usually sponsored by a radio station from the smallest artists to the biggest artists. And I feel like Jackson 5 are probably somewhere near the top of the card tonight. they're getting big, but they're not huge yet. But the crowd seems to like them. They react really well. They do never can say goodbye. And as they're backstage, Joseph's seen it. He's like, this is working.

this

is good. And we see a woman smoking cigarettes kind of standing in the background. That woman is legendary Motown executive Suzanne DePas, who apparently took an interest in the boys and was kind of following them even before Joseph knew it from the research I saw. So she says she lets them know, hey, Motown is interested. At the time, Motown was one of the biggest labels out there.

We then move on to LA 1969. Obviously the boys have now signed to Motown. We don't really get into that too much. They're just kind of there now. we meet Barry Gordy, of course, the founder of Motown Records. he has the boys working on I Want You Back, which is an iconic classic Jackson 5 song. We all know it. And the very first vocal melody is really, really tricky. And Michael nails it like it's nothing. And Barry's very much impressed. However, Michael has an issue, though, with recording. He keeps trying to dance.

in time to the song which moves his head away from the microphone thus wrecking the take so Barry has to keep reminding him you need to stand still for this so it's kind of a funny scene where the young actor playing Michael who did a great job by the way he's kind of dancing just with his like his shoulders and his heads but he's not moving his feet so I guess that's how Michael did it back in the day it's an amazing performance then he also he does a an acapella version of who's loving you the Smokey Robinson song and Barry points out that this might be even better than Smokey but while this is going

Joe's hovering, he's bothering Barry, he's bothering everybody there, he's trying to get Michael away from Barry. Even though Barry's trying to show him the business and say this is how a console works, this is how this works, is why we put EQ on your voice. And he lets Michael know, hey, anytime you want to talk, I'm there for you. And Michael in a nice moment gives him a hug.

Mark (08:33)
We start to see that Barry is maybe acting more of a father figure to Michael than Joseph is. Joseph is very much the stern, hard manager who wants business done right, whereas we see that Barry maybe has more understanding of the position that Michael is in, and Michael almost senses this and maybe is seeing Barry more as a figure. So now we see the Jackson 5 performing on ABC. This is a very big deal at the time.

to be featured on national TV is like, more could you want back then? So we see them getting ready for the performance and the host is talking to Michael and the boys as they're walking through different corridors backstage and he's saying to Michael, how old are you? And Michael's saying, well, you I'm 10 years old. said, no, you should be eight years old. This is show business. You can tell people whatever you want. So they started lying about his age. They perform, they nail it, they kill it.

The audience loves it. The Jackson 5 are a hit.

Jon (09:32)
This scene is a classic example of the Jacksons changing the lore of a story to fit whatever mode they're in that day. Diana Ross was the one who told Michael Jackson to lie about his age. It's a very, very famous story. However, Diana refused to be a part of this movie and basically threatened legal action if they used her likeness in the movie, which is it does hurt the movie a little bit in the fact that if you know anything about Michael Jackson's life and his career, him and Diana Ross were insanely close. She was with the whole family at one point and she gave Michael a ton of career advice. ⁓

lot of it bad. So we'll move on from that. We move into 1971. They're now in Encino, California. And they've got a nicer house now. They're out of InDiana. Michael has a totally Disney themed out bedroom from top to bottom.

And he also has his pet rat with him, which is named Ben, which we'll talk about later. And we also see that Bill Bray is being reduced as the Michael's head of personal security. Bill Bray is a real person and was Michael's real security guard. And if you watch footage even from later on in his career, Bill's always there in his weird Kango hat in basically every scene. he talks his mom about feeling really isolated, how hard it is to be a star, what have you. And it's the only time she mentions that, Jehovah will help because the Jackson family are all Jehovah witnesses as well. That's not really touched on in this film.

They

move on to play in a state fair and they're doing all be there. This is a great scene. They really nail it. The girls are going crazy for Michael. His charm is off the charts. He jumps right off the stage and a good move goes right up to the barricade and sings right to them. They're going crazy. I also really like the touch in the scene too that all the guitars, amplifiers, lights, everything you see in the scene is completely vintage and looks great.

that's the last time we see young Michael we now move on to Jaafar Jackson Jermaine's nephew who is plays Michael for the rest of the film and we move on to him being an adult in 1978

Mark (11:18)
So we see this adult version of Michael having a meeting with Quincy Jones. He's curious about wanting to record a solo record. He's now with Epic CBS. This is a pretty big deal. He tells the executives there is something that they could help him with and they say, okay, sure, whatever you need. And he says, you got to tell Joseph because I'm not too sure if he's going to be cool with this. So one of the executives says, let me get a drink. It's actually pretty funny scene.

We move along to the executives meeting with Joseph and maybe we're thinking, okay, there's gonna be a bit of tension here. This isn't gonna go over too well. The executives pitched the idea to Joseph that Michael wants to have a solo record and this could really help the Jackson brand and this could be a pretty big deal. Joseph actually, he seems pretty into it. He's like, yeah, I agree, this is good idea. I'm down with this. Michael can do whatever he would like on his free time as long as he's back here to work on the Jackson 5 at 9 a.m. every day.

So, I guess we're getting a compromise here. He is allowed to go do his solo stuff, but he's not allowed to get away from the Jackson 5 duties nine to five every day.

We see that Michael is also starting to expand his animal kingdom. There seems to be a small zoo forming around the house now. It's almost sort of like a kind of a state fair kind of vibe. He now has a llama. He talks to his llama. There's also peacocks. I'm not sure if the giraffe is here yet, but if it's not here, it's coming soon. We see his first recording session and he's doing, don't stop till you get enough. It's sounding really great.

Jon (12:46)
It's coming.

Mark (12:55)
He asked the producer to turn the lights down to get the vibe right and the producer reminds him no dancing, calling back to those days as a child when he would dance around and move away from the microphone. So things are sounding great. These are some pretty great montages going on.

Jon (13:10)
We see some scenes from the classic Don't Stop video where he's dancing in the tuxedo. He's basically dancing off of himself. It's kind of like, know, for 1980s special effects, looks pretty good. And then we see a scene the album was released and there's a big record release at Tower Records. Tower Records in LA would do this thing where they release the album at midnight, like on Friday, whenever the new records came out. And if it was a big artist, they would do this big midnight release. People would line up to get the album or maybe cassette back then. the lore is that there was a special room in the back. So a lot of

the artist was actually there looking through a one-way mirror and watching and engaging the reaction of people coming in to buy the records. I know Michael Jackson did it, I know Guns N' Roses did it, I'm sure other groups did it over the years as well. Then we also see him, he's all of a sudden now he's in New York City and he's partying at Studio 54. And that was another thing that's very true to Michael Jackson lore. He loved going to Studio 54, he ruled the dance floor there, he was always tearing it up with celebrities and what have you, and he was basically a prominent fixture at Studio 54. We also see now he's starting to get a

ton

of fan mail. The mail trucks are rolling up with full bags of mail for him every day. He has it scattered all over the place, all over his room. I mean, this is before the internet. You couldn't just leave a comment online or try to like the Star Wars post on Instagram or what have you. If you want to think you're going to get in touch with them, the mail was the only way you could do it. So I have no, I'm sure the Jacksons broke records email of letters they received that year in Sino, California. Then we also see another scene too, where this is one I would have cut. He goes and visits

sick kids at a hospital. Okay, sure. I mean, I do know the history of Michael Jackson.

Mark (14:48)
Back in California, we still see that Michael Jackson lives at home though, with the rest of his family in just sort of this giant compound mansion. That's maybe a little weird. You would think somebody who's achieved this level of success would have their own place, but that's not how it's going. Going back to this theme of expanding the animal kingdom, ⁓ a truck pulls up in the driveway and Michael goes out to greet it with a lot of enthusiasm and his other siblings are kind of looking on like, okay, what's going on here?

And this is the first time that we meet Bubbles, the chimpanzee, done with CGI animation. So we meet Bubbles and kind of weirdly, like Joseph, who you might think might not be down with this, he's fine with it. He's like, okay, this is what he wants to do in his free time. Sure. Okay. Michael continues to dream about Neverland. So again, he's always thumbing through these Peter Pan books. He's always thinking, okay, I want to kind of...

recreate this world around me to be like Neverland. So we start to see this play out and how he's crafting this mansion and this compound with all these different things. Then we fast forward to a scene where we see Michael at a medical clinic and maybe we're not quite sure at first why he's there, but then we see him in a surgeon's office and he's with a surgeon. He's looking into a mirror and we see him describe how he wants to have a nose job. And even the surgeon is kind of looking at him like,

you're an extremely successful person, you're on TV, you're having your photo taken all the time, I think you're doing pretty well, I think most people think you are pretty good looking. I don't know if this is really true, but hey, you're the boss. So they proceed with it and we see Michael get a nose job.

Jon (16:35)
don't know exactly what the first plastic surgery Michael Jackson got, this sparked a lifelong obsession, shall we say, with his looks and plastic surgery. And it seemed like, you know, the joke was in the 80s and 90s, oh, Michael has a new face, because almost every video, every public appearance almost, he looked different from the time before, that's for sure. And I agree with the doctor when he says to him, you're a good looking kid, you don't need to do this. But he stonewalls him with I'm not a kid anymore. So Michael's going to get in.

to come for the rest of his life, Michael gets what he wants. And we also see this the first time that Michael's also dealing with a skin condition called vitiligo where you have different discolorations and spots on your skin. So he's concerned about that as well. And while he's healing up, he's rocking this baseball hat that he that that I'm sure that hat is the actual hat. Maybe Lady Gaga owns it. He was always wearing this weird blue baseball cap with his like kind of navy like royal crests on it. And I remember I remember in the 80s seeing this as a boy and thinking, what a weird hat for a rock star to wear.

But hey, Michael loved it. We also see now he does have the giraffe. It's wandering around the yard. I think this is also a little bit, I think these things are actually at Neverland later on in his life. Maybe not his parents' house. I don't know. And we also see he has a pet snake. And a nice funny scene. Latoya, he says, I have to go, Latoya, watch my snake. He's hungry. Kind of menacingly says it to her. And she's like, hungry for what? A mouse? And he's like, maybe. And just leaves her there with this gigantic snake. So I don't know how all the animals lived together at Michael's.

I guess he must have had an army of animal trainers around at all times to keep them from killing each other.

But we move on to what Joe wants, which is another big part of the Jacksons. He wants the Jacksons to tour. know, great that, you know, did a solo record, Mike, that's fine. But we got to get the brothers back out on the road. Of course, Michael's kind of hesitant about this. He's had some decent success with Off the Wall. Then we also mentioned to you that if the Jacksons go on tour, it won't be with Jermaine. a lot of artists left Motown near the end of the late 70s. Barry Gordy was up to a lot of stuff. A lot of artists left kind of on bad terms with him at that time.

including the Jacksons. However, Jermaine stayed with Motown because he was married to Barry's daughter. And Jermaine also had two solo records in the early 80s that pretty much did as well as Off the Wall. And he was also sort of kind of getting pushed to be a star as well too. So Jermaine was a little bit older than Michael, maybe a little bit first out the gate with a solo album. But of course, Michael relents at first he's angry. He goes around the Hollywood Hills with Bill and he's like, I don't want to do this. I want to be my own man. But of course, when push comes to shove with Joe, who's legitimately

⁓ Michael just gives in and says, okay, we'll do an album. We'll do a tour. And then from the album called triumph, which wasn't greatly received and they did the tour based on it. We see a performance of him doing the song Ben, which is a slower ballad named after his pet rat Ben that we saw earlier. So now Michael's done the tour. He's done what he needs to do for the family, but he really wants getting back to being Michael Jackson. So we hear want to be starting something again and Michael wants a new look.

He goes to a board meeting and he meets Jon Bernacca, who is a record executive for CBS, who's hugely instrumental in Michael Jackson's career. And basically Michael says to do you know what I want?

and he says, I want to be the biggest star in the world, Michael. And he's like, OK, you're my guy. First job he has for him, he's got to fire Joe, which Michael's not going to do himself. So Jon just goes, OK, and fires off a fax to Joe. I mean, I'm sure that Jackson's probably had one of the first fax machines in California, because hey, they're those kind of people. But I just can imagine, I do believe this is a real story, how furious Joe Jackson must have been to read that text. But while all that's going on, Michael's not too concerned about it. We hear the Enjoy Yourself song.

And he's just out toy shopping and buying toys for kids and stuff. He brings home Twister to play with his brothers, but now his brothers are adults now. They're not interested in playing Twister with Michael. And quite frankly, Michael's maybe a little bit too old to be doing that as well. So they just kind of riff on and say, yeah, no, we're going to do our own version of Twister. We'll see you later. So we hear Blyman on the boogie and he decides to play with Bubbles instead of his brothers, which I'm sure he probably did. And a fun fact too I found about Bubbles while researching this is Bubbles is still alive and lives in an animal sanctuary.

and he is 43 years old and Jaafar Jackson recently met him so so Bubbles is alive and well but when he's done playing Twister with the Monkey

He comes out to realize Joe is at home, he lives at home with his entire family, and is very disappointed that he got faxed, if it is basically his release. He kind of jokes, maybe I should frame this. you know, Michael's just like, I want to be my own man. And Joe's kind of like, you don't want to surround yourself by a bunch of yes men. You don't want everything handed to you. Your family's the only ones ever going to trust you. Foreshadowing there, Joe.

Mark (21:20)
We see Michael in the pool with his brothers and they're sort of playing around and riffing on each other. Michael says he's waiting for song ideas because Prince might steal them.

Jon (21:30)
I feel if Prince was alive today to see this movie and heard that line, Prince would definitely say, I write my own songs, I would never steal from you, Michael.

Mark (21:40)
We also see that Michael is looking at the news and he's seeing different reports of gang violence that was going on in LA around that time between the Bloods and the Crips, lots of bad shootings, bad violence, that type of thing. We see him creating the Beat It song using Post-It notes. Probably not true, probably it was a team of people in the studio. Anyway, he has the idea to make a gang summit of sorts. So he wants to do a video shoot.

where he brings together feuding gang members and sort of everyone gets along, kind of this West Side story take, we'll say, of ⁓ gangs coming together. He wants them to move like a school of fish and dance together. At first, some of the gang members are like, come on, like what is this? They're kind of laughing at him, but then they eventually all kind of warm up and they're like, this is amazing, this is Michael Jackson, we're all down.

The actors in the scene were actually Jaafar Jackson's dance coaches, so I guess that's a reason why everyone's dancing pretty well, I think.

Jon (22:43)
you

They definitely have Michael's moves perfectly down. Then we move on to a recording montage of Beat It. And the first thing that struck out to me was, okay, you've everybody in the studio, including Bubbles, but you didn't, you couldn't hire an actor to grab an old Kramer guitar with the red and white and be doing Eddie Van Halen's solo? Eddie Van Halen's solo is what makes the song. And of course the lore of that, Eddie laid it down basically in one track, didn't really prep for it, thought it was a joke when Quincy Jones, someone claiming to be Quincy Jones called them up to go to the studio.

So he kind of went down going what's this gonna be and just nailed one of the most perfect solos of all time I think they could have gotten an actor to play Eddie even if it's been for the three five seconds We would have seen it, but whatever so now we see that Michael's watching old horror movies He was a big movie nut. He loved old cinema.

He loved Charlie Chaplin. He loved Fred Astaire and he definitely loved old horror movies. So he sees this and he started to influence for hmm, what's the album gonna be? What's the theme? What can I drop? And he decides that's it, horror, thriller. We already have a song called Thriller, let's make that the album title. obviously it worked because we still talk about it to this day.

We move on to the shooting of the video for Thriller, which is one of the biggest, maybe the biggest music video of all time. I'm old enough to remember when this came out. I remember there was like, you know, countdown shows for this one was about to air. It was played nonstop and the long version, which is like 15 minutes, I don't know, 12, 15 minutes long without the music, all the acting, all the dialogue video stations were playing that and they usually played three minute clips. So that just shows you the power of this video and how popular it was. And the scene is really well done.

They found the exact same spot in New York City where the original thriller video was filmed and filmed it right there in the exact same spot. The costumes are perfect, the actors are perfect, his love interest shall we say for the video looks exactly like the girl in the original video. And Jaafar really nails this scene. There are videos out there you can find where he copies it basically move for move for move which is no easy feat when you're talking about the most famous Brock video of all time.

Mark (24:52)
We then move along to a meeting at CBS where Michael goes with his manager.

topic of the day is MTV. Why are we not getting played more on MTV? So they meet with Walter Yenikoff, who is played by Mike Myers, and he's kind of like, guys, we've tried this before, MTV, they don't really like playing black artists, they're not into this type of music.

So Michael says, with love, try harder. And it is a very powerful scene. There's a moment of silence and the Walter Yenikov character is like, okay, I gotta do this. I gotta make this happen. So he yells at his secretary, get MTV on the phone right now. And the phones start lighting up. You see the different dials. They're flashing red, they're flashing red. They wait a few moments and then eventually, boom.

Here comes the call from MTV, picks up the receiver.

He screams at them, play Billie Jean 10 minutes from now or we pull our entire catalog. And they really did, it really happened. It was a huge moment in popular culture and I think this was one of my favorite scenes in the movie. It was really well done. It had that sort of kind of an everyday kind of office vibe to it which it felt very realistic but there was also power behind it.

Jon (26:10)
I love this scene as well too. I I've known the story of this for a while, but I didn't know it when I was a kid watching music videos. And I can't imagine an MTV that would just wouldn't play black artists or the Canadian equivalent much music that I watched growing up. so I probably started watching videos just right around this time actually. So huge move from CBS and I applaud them for it. That's great. And it's insane that in 1984 they had to have that conversation.

Anyway, we're moving on to Motown now, the Motown 25th anniversary special. And this was a special put together by Motown. Motown wasn't doing so hot. Barry kind of tried to re-envision himself as a movie producer and, you know, doing a bunch of different movies. Most of them not very well received.

I've seen The Wiz, which Michael Jackson and Diana Ross are in, and we will definitely be tackling it on a later episode of this podcast. He also had another like a Karate Kid type of movie that I remember going to see as a kid too. None of this is very good. So Motown was not in a good spot really around this time, trying to be an everything type of company, movies, TV, music, what have you. So basically the call was put out for all the old stars to come back and put on one basically variety show. And of course, the Jacksons were gonna be asked

be included and I'm sure Jermaine had a lot to do with that.

As usual, Michael's hesitant to be lumped back in with his brothers. Thriller's blowing up, he's doing his own thing. So basically he basically holds him hostage and says the only way I'll perform is if I get to do Billie Jean after me and my brothers sing.

They relent because he was Motown's biggest former star. So we move on to Billie Jean. It's an excellent performance. He does lip sync it because they were a little bit worried about the band being able to keep up with everything.

What's significant about Michael Jackson playing Motown 25 is this is where he debuted the moonwalk.

or it's disputed. A lot of other people have done the moonwalk before, but this is the first time that dance move was ever done on the big screen, the big stage, what have you. And it was immediately a huge pop culture sensation. I remember kids trying to imitate it everywhere you went It was a humongous thing for him to do the moonwalk. I mean, now it seems kind of like, OK, he did a dance move. He's a great dancer, does lots of moves. But the moonwalk was a cultural phenomenon.

The King of Pop has basically become the King of New York City now, causing traffic jams everywhere he goes, just mobbed with fans. Michael Jackson always loved to jump up on a car when there was a crowd around. There's tons of footage of him doing it, even much, much, much later on in his life, going from courtrooms back and forth. Michael loved to stop the limo and jump up and dance on the hood of the limo.

Of course backstage at the Motown 25 is Joe Jackson. He is of course annoying everybody, screaming that's my boy, that's my boy, anyone who will listen. But Joe's got a bigger scheme coming up here. He's starting to meet with Don King. Yes, legendary boxing promoter Don King. And Joe keeps telling Michael, gotta worry about the yes man. Don't let everybody say yes to you. You need to do what you do for your family, which he needs basically do for me. So they've scheming up the Victory Tour, an album, and that's their big

vehicle that Don King and Joe Joseph Jackson want to pull off. Michael yet again does not want to do this. He's super hesitant, but as always he gives in yet again. And I think this is this is a real moment in pop culture. He should have toured Thriller. He could have toured it for two or three years. Played every conceivable possible big venue out there. No problem. But instead he goes for this kind of watered down, here's my boy band from the 1970s with my brothers who are not boys anymore.

they make an album for Victory. I remember the Victory record I don't remember getting much play it didn't get the play that all the Michael Jackson solo videos got that's for sure.

Mark (29:48)
So now we go along to the Pepsi commercial shoot. So this was a huge deal. Pepsi was wanting to reestablish themselves as a major brand and they wanted Michael Jackson to be out front and center for them. So we see this big large stage display and the band is performing. Michael is going up the stairs into this sort of different area of the stage where I guess he's gonna emerge from and start coming down the stairs. So we see as Michael's getting ready, there's some...

Sparks overhead it kind of looks like at first you're not quite sure he starts walking down the stairs And then his hair starts to catch on fire So, no, he falls down to the ground and everyone jumps on him. They're you know, obviously going nuts This is a huge huge deal. Yeah, he suffered really bad burns to his scalp So he ended up in the hospital after this. It was looked pretty scary very painful

But of course, when Joseph is in the reception area talking to the doctor, he's got to know when is Michael going to be able to tour again. Because this is who he is. He lives on the stage. But we can also tell that he doesn't want the well to run dry here of money.

Jon (31:03)
You can always count on Joe to be a class act in any situation, even when his son's in the burn unit of the hospital, he's worried about how much the ticket sales are gonna be.

The whole Jackson family is camped out in the hospital waiting for word about Michael to see if he's going to be okay. I always notice around this time that Tito Jackson was always wearing a hat that said Tito. That was a real trademark of Tito. That stuck out to me. so Jon Baraka goes to visit Michael. Michael's wearing his glove. He's getting better. He says he doesn't want to do any pain meds, but I don't know about that. You know, he was a very serious injury. And as we know later on, Michael Jackson had a lot of issues with pain medication, but Michael's already back in the game. He says, you know,

I will do the tour. I'll do this one last tour for my brothers Then that's it when we've heard this before but Michael seems pretty serious this time that this is going to be it The victory tour I do remember it as well too They did some weird sort of ticket lottery system for people to try to get tickets and it didn't work out very well and it didn't work out properly and The tickets were way overpriced for what they were supposed to be for that time period I mean kind of like today where you people reselling tickets and it was crazy so people want to go to the show basically

couldn't afford to. And that left a lot of empty seats and lot of venues. There were some shows canceled because Jermaine had the flu quote unquote, the low ticket sales flu he had. So the tour did not go smoothly. Michael was mad at everybody on the tour. Apparently at one point he stopped eating and refused to eat anything or play or do any shows until his own private chef was flown out for the duration of the tour. So everyone was in their own camp. Everyone was in their own space. I mean, I've seen footage of the shows online. They play fine. I mean, they're

professionals

they will always put on a good show for you but a lot of the magic of what the Jackson 5 were in the 70s is by 1984 it's really worn off

So they move into Dodger Stadium at LA for what is going to be their final show. They have six sold out nights, which is pretty crazy. That's a huge baseball stadium. And we see the band performing Human Nature, one of Michael Jackson's songs off of Thriller. And they get received really well. The crowd loves it. It's shot really well too. It looks amazing. And they go backstage and they're hanging out and you can tell Michael's up to something.

They come back out and they bust in a working day and night off off the wall. Great song. They're doing a great version of it. But then also Michael goes, everybody quiet. Let's break this down. And they're looking at each other going, this isn't part of the show. Why is Michael breaking down right now? And he starts thanking everybody, tells him how much he loves them. But then he also says very definitively, this is my last show with my brothers. Basically quits right on stage, catching Joseph completely off guard. And there's footage of this on YouTube. You can see when this really happened because it

Obviously as soon as he gets backstage, Joe is furious. The meal ticket is leaving the building. And Bill, his head security, steps between him and says, listen Joe, it's over.

Then we move to London, 1988. The Jackson 5 are behind Michael now.

We're heading right back to the first scene of the movie with him in his bad costume and the whole crowd chanting Michael. And now Michael is fully his own man. This is his vision. This is what he wants. And this is an amazing scene. This is the first scene Jaafar Jackson actually filmed, which is insane to think about what it's difficult scene this was for him to film first. Yet again, it's basically a move for move, note for note performance of his performance of bad in London. The band looks identical to the band Michael Jackson had back then. Everything right down the drummer's

hat

is authentic. It's an amazing scene. Great performance from Jaafar. Great way to end the film too as well with one of his biggest hits and showing that we're moving into a different era of Michael Jackson. He's his own man now. And then we end with the cryptic graphic. His story begins. That's Michael.

Mark (34:53)
Looking at the film's soundtrack, have Michael, Songs from the Motion Picture. This was released on the same day as the movie, so April 24th, 2026 on Columbia Records.

First up, we have All Be There, that's from the third album of Jackson 5.

Jon (35:10)
Huge, huge, huge hit for the Jackson 5. The vocals are amazing. Everybody knows the song. Of course, it's a great scene in the movie too when he's doing it. Mariah Carey, of course, very famously covered this song for number one of her own. It's that classic Motown sound. It's exactly what you think of. And also I'd like to say that this is kind of a duet in parts too as well. And Jermaine Jackson's parts sound really good as well too in this song.

Mark (35:35)
Up next is Never Can Say Goodbye, that's from Maybe Tomorrow, also by the Jackson 5.

Jon (35:41)
We're still in the Motown vibe here for sure. Another ballad. I would say this is a lesser Albee there, but still, you know, a classic, very famous Jackson song.

Mark (35:51)
Who's Loving You? That's from Diana Ross Presents the Jackson 5.

Jon (35:56)
And this of course is a Smokey Robinson cover and it's the one that Barry famous referred to as better than the original. And that's saying something because Smokey Robinson is an absolute legend.

It's a great scene in the movie, especially for Michael Jackson's age at the time for the performance. It's just mind blowing that he was that young and was that college and that good.

Mark (36:16)
fourth track is actually a medley. a combination of I Want You Back, ABC, and The Love You Save. That's from the Jackson's Live album.

Jon (36:27)
This is my favorite song on the soundtrack for sure. It takes me right back to when I was young. And even though the cartoon came out in the 70s, I remember the Jackson 5 cartoon airing in the 19 early 1980s when I was watching cartoons and I think this medley was some similar version of it was in the cartoon. I remember it that way. It's perfect pop music. It's the transitions between the songs to are just mind blowingly tight. How they go from I want you back into ABC, into the Love You Save.

It's like a one second transition. It's so impressive how good the backing band was here. The backup band sounds great, the backup vocals sound great, there's a crazy bass line near the end, and it's just perfect pop music. I mean, if you hear some today, even like BTS or something like that, they kind of steal from this a little bit here and there, I think.

Mark (37:14)
Next we have a live version of Ben that's also from the Jackson's Live.

Jon (37:19)
Ben is Michael Jackson's rat. The song is written about Michael Jackson's rat. I do not like this song. I know people out there love it and it's people absolutely one of their all time favorite songs. It's not for me.

Mark (37:33)
Don't stop till you get enough. That's from Michael Jackson's first solo album, Off the Wall.

Jon (37:38)
Here we have grown up Michael Jackson for the first time. This song deals with much more of an adult theme to it. And I think this is a good pop song. It really bridges from the 1970s disco sound, but kind of getting more into the modern 80s sound as well. I always thought this was a perfect bridge from those two eras. I also work as a professional DJ and I've done many, many, many events. And this is a song I often use if I'm going from a disco set more into like an 80s, 90s set.

it's still a banger. The hook is so insanely good. And it's also just kind of showing you what he's going to be, that he will become the king of pop.

Mark (38:08)
The next five songs are off Thriller, the biggest album of all time.

Jon (38:13)
It's a little intimidating to review songs off the biggest album of all time, but we're gonna do it.

Mark (38:19)
seventh track on the album, Beat It.

Jon (38:22)
Beat It has the perfect riff. Everybody knows it, iconic riff. The video is iconic. The whole gang theme, the whole West Side story. And this is the gritty Michael Jackson, where definitely more he's moved to his adult phase now. And he also mentions too that he saw gang violence growing up in Gary before he was famous. So a little different take there from Michael. You wouldn't expect that in one of his songs.

It was everywhere when it first came out. I remember hearing it nonstop. And Eddie Van Halen's solo, which we talked about earlier, really pushes this one over the top and makes it absolutely perfect.

Mark (38:56)
Thriller.

Jon (38:58)
Of known for his Vincent Price intro, where apparently he was asked if he wanted points on the record, which is like royalties, or 20 grand. He took the 20 grand. Bad move, man. Bad move. It's a Halloween mainstay. You hear it every Halloween, and even generally, hear it all the time. It's the ultimate kind of horror pop song. The video, what else can you say about it? We talked about it already. it may be the biggest music video of all time. I have DJed many, many, many Halloween costume contests

parties at bars and nightclubs and this is always the song I play in the background while I'm doing it.

Mark (39:29)
Billy Jean.

Jon (39:31)
What can I say about Billie Jean? The biggest, most popular song we've probably ever covered here to date in the Rock N' Roll Theatre. You know it from his very first snare hit. You know the whole story. The kid's not my son. We know every note of this song. Working as professional DJ for many, many years, doing weddings, corporate shows, nightclubs, bars, all sorts of stuff. I remember an older DJ telling me one time, if they won't dance to Billie Jean, they're not gonna dance to anything and you're gonna have a long night.

Mark (39:57)
Wanna be startin' some.

Jon (39:59)
starts the movie, classic Michael Jackson song, the mama say mama maku saw, that's where that's from, it's been sampled many times over the years from many other artists, most famously Rihanna, it kicks off thriller and it sets the tone for the album right away.

Mark (40:14)
human nature.

Jon (40:15)
This is a ballad, it's featured in the movie when they're doing the Victory Tour. Has a very 80s sort of soundtrack ballad feel to it. I totally get why it's there. I totally get why people like it and it works. But I feel like Michael's at his best when he's more being like a powerhouse lead singer front man. Not so much doing the ballads. And I know he has a lot of them and they're famous. But I think Michael's best when he's rocking out.

Mark (40:36)
We're going back to off the wall now for working day and night.

Jon (40:40)
I'm glad this is here. This is an overlooked Jackson song, I guess it would be. They weren't Jackson 5 anymore at that point. It's a huge moment in the film. It's super James Brown influenced every part of it, but it's a great song and the band is so good on this one.

Mark (40:56)
finish it off with the 13th song Bad from the album Bad.

Jon (41:03)
I remember when this album came out, the hype around it was insane. I mean, he had the biggest record of all time. How is he gonna follow it up? What's he gonna do? And this is from an era where things did not leak on the internet. There was no internet. You just had little rumors, this, that. People were like, I heard he cut his hair. I heard he did this, I heard that. And the hype around it was two, three weeks out. I think there was countdowns on the video channels of when they were going to air this video. So make sure whatever day it was, be tuned in on the station to see it. I remember the world debut,

the video was a humongous deal.

There is an interesting story, slash urban legend about the song bad that Quincy Jones originally envisioned this as a duet with Michael and Prince doing the two parts.

Michael and Prince were definitely in competition with each other in the 80s. So the fact that Quincy would even suggest this seems a little strange, but okay. So apparently when he sent a demo version over to Prince, Prince was not pleased. He's basically messaging back saying, Quincy.

who says your butt is mine to start off the song? He says, well, you would Prince. Prince is like, I will never say it to Michael Jackson ever. Forget this. And then apparently after he heard the final version, Prince still wouldn't let it go, record his own version of Bad in his home studio, sent it to Quincy Jones and said, this is how the song should have been done.

Mark (42:23)
Looking at the critical reception from Michael, keeping in mind that it's still early days here, it's been less than a week since the film has been out, right now it's scoring 38 % on its tomato meter and 97 % on its popcorn meter. That is quite the drastic difference between the two.

Jon (42:42)
I think that's the hugest swing we've seen yet here in the Rock N' Roll Theatre. Of course it is early days, the movie only came out a few days before we recorded this, but I mean that's definitely a huge swing. I think it will even out over time.

Mark (42:55)
On Internet Movie Database right now it has a 7.7 out of 10. I think that's a little bit more realistic.

many point out that the film failed to address any of the controversies that surrounded Michael Jackson. But I found that is this point really directed at the movie or is it more so at the artist? My thought here is how can you criticize something that wasn't in the movie deliberately due to the movie's timeline ending in 1988? I get there were lots of scandals involving Michael Jackson, I'm not denying that for a second.

But this movie actually doesn't cover that timeline.

Jon (43:31)
I agree with you on that point. The movie does end in 1988 and a lot of the things that people wanted to be addressed didn't happen till afterwards. So I'm okay with them leaving it where they left it. I get it. Also, I mean, it was already a two hour movie. If you go all the way through the rest of his career, that would, I don't even know how long that would take. So there's also rumors that there is stuff filmed from later on in his career and they may be splitting this into two movies. No one's confirmed or denied that, but I could kind of see them doing, you know, another movie of this. And I hate to say it, knowing the Jackson family and just

you know knowing of them my whole life basically wherever there's a dollar to be made and controversy they'll be there if Jermaine Jackson thinks he can get in Latoya i think they can get more money out of this franchise of movies they will absolutely do it they'll cut everything they'll rechange history to whatever suits them I'm okay with them leaving out certain really scandalous things that might actually get them in legal trouble i understand that but no mention of Diana ross no mention of Janet no mention of the other siblings i know a lot of them said they didn't want to be in it but then Janet's

said she did want to be in it. think Janet Jackson is giving three stories in the last three days about if she was in it, not in it, what have you. And this is always the way it is when you deal with the Jackson family.

The Jacksons can be difficult to deal with for sure. However, the internet is also difficult in its own way. We have a tradition here at the Rock N' Roll Theatre, everything we watch, everything we see, my brother scours the internet and finds a one-star review of whatever we've seen. Even though this movie is pretty new, there's already some one-star reviews out there. What do you got for us?

Mark (44:59)
This week we're looking at Internet Movie Database. This is a review from the user VKGQCJBD on April 23rd, 2026. It's called Pure Disaster, One Star Out of 10. It goes like this.

I went into Michael a bit skeptical, but still... open. You kind of want it to be good, right? It's Michael Jackson, after all. There's so much there to work with. The music, the complexity, everything. But honestly, I'd rather just watch old clips of him on YouTube. At least there, you're getting the real thing. This just feels... off. Polished in a way that doesn't quite land and...

somehow still empty. And maybe this is just me, but even if his own family or parts of it seem hesitant or not fully behind it, that kind of says something. It makes you wonder who this film is really for. Fans? Or just the studio? It ends up feeling like they're squeezing whatever is left out of his legacy, not celebrating it, not really honoring it, just using it, which is a bit uncomfortable to watch, to be honest.

I don't know. Maybe some people will connect with it more. For me, it just didn't work at all. Applehead, I miss you. 22 people found that helpful. 43 thumbs down.

Jon (46:36)
Normally, I always disagree with the one star reviews that we have but this one I hate to say brings up a lot of good points a lot of points I would bring up myself. I don't think it's a one-star movie and far from it. However, her quote here of Her or him not really sure here. This says that they're squeezing whatever's left of his legacy They've been doing that for a really long time so that you should not be surprised about that And there probably will be a sequel that will squeeze even more out of it

Mark (47:01)
Looking at The Lasting Legacy of Michael, we gotta point out that it's still early days, so it's obviously hard to gauge in this case. I will say it's a well-made film. I would recommend it to any music fan if you just like movies and biopics. I think it's perfectly suitable in that realm. Michael Jackson is one of the most popular musicians in the history of music, so that is definitely saying something. The fact that this is, he's the star, he's the central story, this is a movie about him.

Obviously it's not being loved by critics at the moment. Clearly it does have holes, but again, overall I would say it's nowhere near as bad as some might be saying these ridiculous scores of, you know, three out of 10 and one out of 10 and 38 % on Rotten Tomatoes is just like, that's just crazy. It's, it's not a perfect 10 on 10 movie by no means, but it is, it doesn't deserve a failing grade. No way. they hint at his story begins. So are we going to see a sequel?

We didn't really arrive at a conclusion here. We have that important last performance scene, but we don't really get any sort of conclusion.

Jon (48:08)
I agree with almost all your points there. No, it's not a perfect movie, but if you like biopics, if you like rock and roll theatre, this is a definite recommend for me. The live performances are done really, really well. The video shoot scenes are amazing. And I think the actors and the acting are pretty good overall in this film. I mean, yes, there are a lot of factual errors, but if you know anything about the Jacksons, you're going to get factual errors. That's just what they do.

A lot of things we cover here on the podcast are older, we're watching them on video, streaming site, what have you. We try to go see new movies in the theatre as often as we can. So this was a nice treat for us to cover something that just came out a few days ago. And I tried to avoid most of the hype, critics, what have you, but I couldn't help but hearing this little buzz and the daze leading up to me going to see it for the first time that this is so bad, this is like the worst thing ever. So I was a little bit hesitant to see, okay, what kind of movie am I gonna get out of this? Turns out it's a fine biopic as far as biopics go.

They all bend the truth, the story at some points to make a better movie, usually. And if people don't want to participate and threaten to sue, you can't really include them in the movie. Yeah, it would have been good to see, Diana Ross character or a Janet Jackson character in this film. That just isn't going to happen. But I saw it a second time with my wife. She enjoyed it. She grew up with Michael Jackson the same way we all did. She knows all the stories and scandals too, but she enjoyed it for what it was, a fun music pick. I think that's where we'll leave Michael this time.

Thank you very much for joining us today in the Rock N' Roll Theatre. If you could do something quick for us, like, subscribe, comment, whatever the case may be, wherever you're at in the world, that'd be great. We also have some cool fun stuff on YouTube, on TikTok, so make sure you check those out as well. But for now, the theatre is closed.