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Thursday Thoughts…

The political stakes on Oscar night: When is an Oscar race a referendum on Hollywood and the U.S. president? The 13 nominations for Emilia Pérez instantly creates a frontrunner for best picture, but it’s hardly a runaway, and I’d argue that with the preferential ballot, which is designed to reward consensus rather than polarizing films, five or arguably six of the nominees could actually win. (The others: Anora, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, and Wicked.) The Academy’s choice will almost certainly be scrutinized by Donald Trump and his fellow culture warriors, so either voters want to stick it to the openly anti-transgender president and pick the movie built around its trans star, or the Academy would prefer to not poke the bear and instead go for something else.
Red flag ratings alert: The 10 best picture nominees have grossed a collective $1.8 billion in theaters. That’s worldwide. Excluding Wicked and Dune: Part Two, the other eight have grossed just $375 million total. If Oscar night boils down to a string of wins for The Brutalist and Emilia Perez, expect TV ratings to dip from last year’s Barbenheimer-enhanced 19.5 million viewers, despite the ABC show streaming live on Hulu for the first time.
Speaking of streaming…: In a perverse way, this week’s massive Netflix flex—a record 19 million new subscribers in the past quarter; price hikes across all tiers; a share price nearing $1,000, up from $180 at the bottom of the 2022 correction; and a market cap now larger than all five legacy studio conglomerates combined—is probably welcome news for its traditional Hollywood rivals. If 2025 and ’26 are gonna be spent justifying why these studios need to merge and/or joint venture with each other, there’s no better evidence than a runaway competitor dominating the global paid streaming business. That’s always been Netflix, of course, but now it’s really Netflix. Are we sure David Zaslav isn’t using the $30 million he just cashed out in Warner Discovery stock to buy Netflix shares instead?
Pot calling the kettle Blake: Regardless of whether you’re Team Blake Lively or Team Justin Baldoni, can we all bow down to the most brazenly hypocritical Hollywood legal maneuver in years? Lively’s lawyers have asked the judge overseeing the unending It Ends With Us saga for a gag order to prevent Baldoni attorney Bryan Freedman from speaking to the media. Yes, the same Lively team who initiated this entire public saga by leaking the “smear campaign” story to The New York Times.
Box office over/under: Tracking for Lionsgate’s balding Mark Wahlberg thriller Flight Plan, directed by Ambassador Mel Gibson, dipped a little today, so let’s set the line at $11 million for the weekend. I’ll take the over. If the MAGA audience won’t show up for this movie, they can’t complain when Emilia Pérez wins best picture.

Now, on to the MJ movie madness…

A Dark Secret Has Imperiled the New Michael Jackson Movie

The late pop star’s estate overlooked a key contract with a child accuser that has now rendered the already shot third act of the film unusable. With the clock ticking on a delayed October release date, producers are scrambling to rewrite, reshoot, and somehow salvage MJ’s big-budget musical biopic.

Matthew Belloni

It’s the nightmare scenario for movie producers, right? You spend years assembling your project, convincing an Oscar-nominated screenwriter to tackle difficult material. You secure the necessary I.P. rights and the massive, $150 million budget to tell the story right. You get distributors on board—both foreign and domestic—and a starry cast whose schedules barely align. You spend months shooting the entire movie, mostly on location at the exact sites you envisioned (some of which you had to beg to secure). Then, as you’re starting postproduction, with your director cutting it all together to meet your aggressive release date, the phone rings, and everything begins to fall apart. That’s basically what just happened to Graham King, the lead producer of Michael, the big-budget Michael Jackson movie directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day), written by John Logan (Gladiator), and starring Miles Teller, Colman Domingo, Nia Long, and Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson as the King of Pop himself. Lionsgate, which is distributing Michael in the U.S., announced in November that the film was being delayed from April until at least October. What the studio didn’t say was why—and man, the real story here is a wild one. First, if you recall, I wrote about this movie last April. Someone slipped me the script, and as I read it, I was surprised by how aggressively the project sought to change the narrative on Jackson’s, uh, complicated legacy. Michael’s famously protective estate and its executors, John Branca and John McClain, are involved in this movie, so I knew it wasn’t exactly gonna be a no-holds-barred exploration of the pedophilia allegations that first arose in the ’90s. (Jackson and his estate have always denied the claims, and he was prosecuted in 2005 but never convicted of any crimes.)

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

13 Academy Awards^® Nominations including BEST PICTURE THE MOST NOMINATED FILM OF THE YEAR — PGA Award Nominee Darryl F. Zanuck For Outstanding Producer Of Theatrical Motion Pictures _______ From DGA Award Nominated Director Jacques Audiard

[WATCH] An Inside Look At The Making of EMILIA PÉREZ Discover the making of the film with an in-depth look at the story, the cast, and the music and extraordinary crafts that bring EMILIA PÉREZ to life.

“It's just not like any other film that's ever been made. It's bold, daring, a vision.” -James Cameron — EXPLORE THE ORIGINAL WORLD OF EMILIA PÉREZ [CLICK HERE] _______

For more information on EMILIA PÉREZ, visit film.netflixawards.com

But this movie is different from other Jackson-related media that has appeared in the years since his 2009 death, at age 50, from a drug overdose. While the estate-approved Cirque du Soleil shows and the hit Broadway musical, MJ, all but ignore the child accusers and focus on Jackson’s public persona and his incredible music, this movie addresses them head-on. Michael, as I wrote, “directly engages with the allegations against Jackson. And it not only engages, it wants very much to convince you Michael is innocent.” That engagement has turned out to be a major problem for everyone involved. Here’s why: The script begins and ends during the 1993 investigation into statements about Jackson’s anatomy made by Jordan Chandler, the then-13-year-old boy whose molestation claim led to worldwide headlines and an eventual $20 million settlement. The script depicts Jackson as the naïve victim of the money-grubbing Chandlers, whose unfounded claims force Jackson to endure ridicule and persecution until he ultimately settles, his resolve and reputation forever in tatters. The film’s third act, in particular, hinges specifically on the impact of the Chandler circus. In the script I read—which I’m told was close to final, but obviously these things are often revised—a tense sequence involves Branca (Teller), Johnnie Cochran (Derek Luke), and other Jackson lawyers discussing whether to pay off Chandler and his family. At one point, the lawyers play the infamous recording, submitted in court, of Jordan’s father threatening to leverage his son’s accusations to “destroy” his ex-wife and Jackson’s career. The ensuing scenes dramatize the extensive police investigation, including a “traumatizing” strip search of Michael that scars him for life. The problem? Years before signing off on the Michael movie with the Chandlers featured in the script, Jackson’s team agreed they would never include the family in any such movie. Yes, according to two sources, there’s a signed agreement with the Chandlers prohibiting any dramatization of them or their stories. Ouch. That deal, which was overlooked by the estate during the vetting of the script, has now rendered the planned storyline and several key scenes that were shot unusable. Like I said, a nightmare. (Several attempts to reach Branca and the Jackson estate’s lead litigator, Jonathan Steinsapir, were unsuccessful.)

Third-Act Problems

How in the name of Bubbles the Chimp did this happen? After all, per three sources involved with the project, Branca assured King and the filmmakers that there was nothing to worry about, no skeletons in Michael’s closet that weren’t already known, and no surprises that would put the film or its narrative in jeopardy. It is well known that Branca was in and out of Jackson’s life in the late ’80s and early ’90s, returning right around the time of the Chandler situation. So it would have made sense that Cochran, the late litigator, and not Branca, would have handled the settlement with the family. But still, Branca is the co-executor of an estate worth billions, so the buck stops with him. The catalyst for all this was a September story in the Financial Times that revealed Branca had made secret hush money payments to five accusers who had come forward after HBO aired the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland, which focused on accusers Wade Robson and James Safechuck. According to the FT, these new accusers threatened to go public with claims that Jackson had acted inappropriately, and the estate agreed to collectively pay them $16.5 million to stay quiet. Then last year, as the payments neared their end, one of the five accusers allegedly violated the agreement, seeking an additional $213 million, so the estate brought an arbitration claim against him. When the FT found out about the payments, so did the Michael filmmakers and their studio partners, who didn’t love being blindsided. What else has the estate not revealed? Everyone involved knows this movie will have a giant target on it when it’s released. Michael Jackson has always been a magnet for crazy people and litigious crazy people. Everything about Michael needs to be airtight, and the filmmakers feared that any “noise” around Jackson from new accusers could damage the film’s reception. The estate is already battling in court against Robson and Safechuck, although a planned trial early this year has been delayed until 2026. But that was just the beginning. According to two sources, around the time he revealed the hush money payments, Branca let the filmmakers know that there was a legal issue with the third act of the movie. That’s when everyone learned about the decades-old deal with the Chandlers. Mind you, this was after shooting had wrapped on a film with a $150 million budget. It was after King had teased footage of the movie at CinemaCon last April, and Fuqua had gone to ComicCon in July to tell everyone how great it was turning out. I can only imagine how the famously emotional King reacted. If Michael now can’t “dramatize” the Chandler claims, which are the backbone of the film, what, exactly, will the third act entail?

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

“It's just not like any other film that's ever been made. It's bold, daring, a vision.” -James Cameron — EXPLORE THE ORIGINAL WORLD OF EMILIA PÉREZ [CLICK HERE] _______

For more information on EMILIA PÉREZ, visit film.netflixawards.com

That’s what King, Fuqua, and Logan have been trying to figure out for weeks now. After a rewrite, the filmmakers are set to give Lionsgate a revised script and shooting strategy for approval as early as this week. Universal, which is distributing overseas, must also sign off on the changes—or bail on the project entirely, if the studio chooses. (Both Lionsgate and Universal declined to comment.) Even before this problem emerged, the estate had agreed to fund any reshoots; it will now cover the costs of the additional photography necessary to complete a new, legally kosher version of the film. A huge expense, of course, but remember, thanks to Branca, the estate has generated an estimated $3 billion in revenue since Jackson died, including last year’s massive $600 million sale of half of Jackson’s music catalog to Sony. King, who declined to talk to me, is said to be confident that his team can fix the movie. He’s booked soundstages for March and informed key cast and crew of the need to reconvene. A source at Lionsgate is similarly hopeful that King can resolve the issues in time to hit that October release date. (Universal has a jam-packed 2026 slate, so there aren’t many dates to put Michael if further delays are needed.) The good news, according to everyone I spoke with, is that the usable footage they do have is impressive. Jackson’s nephew delivers as Michael, and the musical sequences play big, like something you’d want to watch in Imax. Time after time, Jackson’s millions of fans have chosen to celebrate his music and larger-than-life persona—and ignore the allegations that consumed the final third of his life. So I’m betting Michael, if it ultimately pleases the fans, will be a global hit in the vein of King’s Bohemian Rhapsody, and nobody in the real world will care about any of these extraordinary behind-the-scenes problems. That is, of course, if the movie is actually released.

Finally… One Fun Thing…

Last week on The Town, Warner Bailey, proprietor of the popular Assistants vs. Agents account on Instagram, revealed a new “awards show” for agents featuring the results of a poll of his 1,700 or so followers. Bailey has now closed the voting, and I’m pleased to present a few of the official results: Most Frightening Agent:

Ari Emanuel, WME/Endeavor
Cara Lewis, CAA (Music)
Toni Howard, CAA
Marissa Devins, UTA
Tim Weissman, Buchwald

Nicest Agent:

Allan Haldeman, UTA
Strand Conover, WME
Kevin Shivers, Wasserman

Agent With the Best Style:

Blair Kohan, UTA
Tracy Brennan, CAA
Alex Mebed, CAA

Hardest to Get on the Phone:

Marissa Devins, UTA
Sue Carls, CAA
Oren Rosenbaum, UTA

Poach of the Year (POTY):

Kevin Shivers, from WME to Wasserman
Billie Eilish, from Wasserman to WME
Judd Apatow, from UTA to WME

See you Monday, Matt Got a question, comment, complaint, or want to donate to L.A. fire relief? Go here, or email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.

Puck founding partner Matt Belloni takes you inside the business of Hollywood, using exclusive reporting and insight to explain the backstories on everything from Marvel movies to the streaming wars.

A professional-grade rundown on the business of sports from John Ourand, the industry’s preeminent journalist, covering the leagues, players, agencies, media deals, and the egos fueling it all.

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