Antoine Fuqua notched the best opening of his career at the box office this past weekend as his Michael Jackson biopic, Michael, from Lionsgate and Universal debuted to $97M U.S. and $217.4M worldwide. The sweat truly paid off for the director who cut his teeth doing music videos for Toni Braxton, Stevie Wonder, Prince as well as Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise”. Quite often, those movies which last for ages, i.e. The Godfather, Chinatown, Titanic, are those which have the most daunting behind-the-scenes moments. Fuqua was thrown a curve ball after finishing production on Michael: the movie’s finale originally featured Jackson accuser Jordan Chandler, whose settlement with the singer’s estate guaranteed they would never be dramatized. The estate said mea culpa and took on the extra cost of $50M reshoots taking the pic’s net production cost to $200M. Fuqua had to pass on other jobs as additional shooting on Michael lasted 20 days. We caught up with the filmmaker this morning on his way to Italy where he’s shooting the Netflix Denzel Washington feature, Hannibal, to talk about making Michael a reality.
Did you ever meet Michael Jackson?
No, just a phone call when I was being considered as a director for “Remember the Time.” I was in Italy, so I couldn’t be part of the bidding on that one. He was a quiet, sweet guy. It wasn’t so much an audition or anything like that, it was more him saying ‘Hello’ and how much he liked my work. It was like he was touching base with me. It wasn’t a long phone call.
When the opportunity arose to direct Michael, did you have to pitch yourself or was it as simple as Graham King saying ‘You’re the guy’?
Bob Richardson, the DP, we were working on Equalizer 3 together, and he showed me a photo of Michael Jackson and him on the set. And I said ‘Bob, how do you look exactly the same with long grey hair with Michael? He said ‘That isn’t Michael, it’s Jaafar, his nephew, they did a test.’ And it blew me away. He told me that Graham King really wanted me to do this Michael film and I hadn’t read the script yet. After that, Graham flew to the Amalfi coast and we sat down, talked about Michael and that’s when it started. He talked to me about any concerns I might have, and I read the script, and I was in.
Lionsgate tells me you had a very strong take on what Michael should be. Can you share that with us?
I wanted to humanize Michael. I wanted people to get to know him: How eccentric he was, how he was as a young man. I always felt that younger generations didn’t know Michael or his story. In order to tell anything about Michael, you had to remind people about the magic of him, the power of the music, and the fun that he brought into the world and his own insecurities. He’s one of the most complex characters to tell a story about. My approach was to ground him as much as we can, so that he’s relatable to anyone outside of being on that stage.
The way that the movie is paced is nuanced, and yet suspenseful given the dynamic between his father Joe Jackson and himself. You never know when Joe is going to snap.
It’s delicate. You can’t escape that situation when you live with your parent. So, he’s always in that trapped position. It has to do with how Michael responded to animals, like Bubbles (the chimp). That says a lot about Michael rescuing other people who felt that they were being abused, mistreated. He would do whatever he could to help others. So, animals were easy for him because he’s always been that way since he was a kid. He rescued (them), and that was part of his nature.
In terms of everything that happened where you initially shot the film, and then the whole up-ending between the dramatized accuser and the estate — has there ever been a challenging film such as this in your career?
All movies have different challenges, but this one was really unique. It was an extra punch in the gut for me at that moment, because I was in the exact same situation with Emancipation. I was literally handing in the director’s cut when Will (Smith) slapped Chris (Rock). I was floored and devastated and knew what that meant overall and that the movie would be written off. This was a similar situation, because I was handing in the director’s cut and I get this call. That was a tough day.
It’s clear the groundwork you’ve laid in Michael in regards to telling the story in a sequel about the accusations brought against him. The fact that it wasn’t addressed in Part 1, did that weigh heavy on your mind and the studio’s?
It definitely did for a while, because we had to rethink everything. That was a tough period. Graham, John Logan and I banged our heads around. We had a lot of meetings. But we clicked into it at the same time: The movie is called Michael so you have to focus on Michael. Unless you can truly take your time, let’s go back to the beginning and really show people who he was on the stage. He’s a superhero on the stage. Just like a human being, movies have the power of empathy to just say this is a human being. No one is perfect. It was important to take the audience through a process of how do you get to wherever it’s going to go in a second movie; for people to get a bigger idea of his personality and what shaped him. What we realized, if you start there, some people who don’t know Michael, it’s out of context. His arc was so extreme. It was important for us to go back, and give them a journey to go on with Michael. There was also a certain amount of abuse he was always dealing with emotionally and physically in that household with his father. If you don’t do that, you won’t understand him and where the story goes. We planted the seeds: He starts talking to John Branca about the pills, ‘These pills are making me sleepy and the doctor is saying you gotta take these pills’; that’s what killed him. So, it was set-up along the way that these are the things that led to wherever it’s going to go which we all know. That’s part of the tension you feel, because you know it didn’t end well, unfortunately.
How long did it take John Logan to write the additional scenes?
I can’t remember the exact amount. We were writing while we were shooting. As we were shooting, we were discovering things. We had the structure down. Once we had that, Graham and I would go through that, then we’d sit with John. It was a lot of digging and going back at scenes we had before.
You have a third of footage that can go into the potential sequel?
Absolutely.
Did you shoot through the end of his life? Or did you shoot up until “Remember the Time”?
We went pretty far. We went through the Jordan allegations we couldn’t use. We went farther than that. Maybe a year or two after that (1995) when things turned against Michael.
How did Jaafar Jackson come to win the role? Were there others up for it?
When I saw the photo I was blown away, but that’s a photo. When I came back from Italy we set up a whole make-up and camera test. There were others as well in the mix. But when I came back, Graham met Jaafar before him. When I got back, I had breakfast with Jaafar and I could see how gentle and elegant he was, just a kind of person, you could see the DNA of Michael. I wasn’t sure if he was auditioning. Then I spent time with him, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be an actor. But I know this was something, if he was going to do it, he was going to go all in. Graham had him take some acting lessons. When I got involved on the set, and he was dancing, I threw a question at Jaafar that he didn’t know was coming. I was rolling and I asked him a question like he was Michael. The room stopped, it was almost spiritual: He answered my question as if he was Michael. (DP) Dion Bebe who was helping out with the test, he had tears in his eyes, and half of the crew did. It was so powerful. I thought he could do it. Because he didn’t know I was going to ask him that question and he didn’t know that I was rolling. I wanted to see if he could stay in the moment and be Michael.
Then there’s the whole idea can he do it in front of a whole cast and crew. I went over to Havenhurst where he was living, rehearsing and practicing. The walls were covered in Michael but with detailed graphs, it was like A Beautiful Mind. So, he’s in it, but can he do it the day of? We started with Bad with a big show on the Sony lot with a 1,000 extras and lights, a big show. Here ya go, kid, throw you into the fire. And he blew my mind. I watched him do it over and over again with the dance moves, until his feet were bleeding, but also the acting routine.
If there’s a sequel, is it certain you will direct?
I would like to, it’s just about scheduling. It would kill me if somebody else did it.
As far as a Janet Jackson movie…I know that she opted not be involved in Michael and the rumor is that she wants to do her own feature. Have you had any conversations with her about that?
I have not. I’m a fan of Janet, for sure.
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