Lionsgate Confirms “Michael 2” Talks Underway

Lionsgate Studios Motion Picture Chair Adam Fogelson says the company is very much making progress on creating a follow-up to last month’s smash hit “Michael”.

In fact, on a call with analysts today after the company’s quarterly earnings report, he indicated there’s plenty of franchise potential here.

The Antoine Fuqua-directed first film, starring Michael Jackson’s real life nephew Jaafar Jackson, looks like it could be the first Lionsgate film to top $1 billion at the global box office.

Fogelson tells investors that work on the follow-up is still in the very earliest stages but well underway with conversations going ‘exceptionally well’ and it’s all coming together:

“All the conversations that we’ve been having with all of the appropriate parties continue to go exceptionally well, and I would say that there is a ton of incredibly entertaining Michael Jackson story, and much of the biggest and most popular parts of his music catalog that were not touched upon in the first film.

We can go forwards and backwards in telling this story. There are so many other events that happened, even in the time frame of the original movie, that weren’t touched upon. So we’re very, very confident that we’ve got an incredibly entertaining movie that will appeal once again to a global audience as the pieces come together”.

As we know, much of the film’s original third act was scrapped with the existing movie cutting off well before the controversies surrounding Jackson emerged. Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer indicates that the existing footage will almost certainly be reused:

“We believe there is a lot more story to tell and a lot more music to share. [We have] 25% to 30% of a second movie already shot from the prior production activity, and so obviously that will have some benefit ultimately. But we’ll make sure we make a big and satisfying movie for a global audience once again, so I wouldn’t want to quantify exactly what that’s going to look like. But undoubtedly that 25% to 30% will be material.”

The current film spans the early life of the musician from the discovery of his talent as the lead of the Jackson Five to the artist whose creative ambition fueled a pursuit to become the biggest entertainer in the world.

Source: Deadline