Thursday, December 12, 2024

Michael Jackson Broadway Musical Postponed From This Fall to Summer 2020 to Avoid Association with Documentary

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The Michael Jackson Broadway musical “Don’t Stop til You Get Enough” has been postponed from its Fall 2019 opening to Summer 2020.

Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage is writing the script and Christopher Wheeldon is directing/choreographing.

Producers are obviously doing what Motown and CBS did two nights ago when the omitted Michael from their TV special. They’re trying to distance themselves from the upcoming HBO documentary that accuses Jackson of child molestation.

The planned Chicago tryout for this summer has been canceled, a press release says, because of an Equity strike. Anyway, that’s what they say. But the reality is the HBO doc “Leaving Neverland” is now an issue.

Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage is writing the script and Christopher Wheeldon is directing/choreographing.

But the show is called “The Life of Michael Jackson” and I really don’t think they can ever do it. I’m sorry. But Michael is “hot” right now in a bad way. Telling his real life story would have to include trials and payoffs and hyperbaric chambers and so on. Otherwise, they’re going to have a lot of PR trouble, too much for even the most clever flack.

 

 

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.

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