^^^^ I get what you're trying to say but you have to remember that this film will be between 2 to 3 hours long.... that's it.
It's impossible to cover everything without the movie becoming overwhelming and simply too much to digest, it's gotta be entertaining.
They will cover Michael's childhood but you need to be realistic.
The music, the dancing, plastic surgeries, controversies, child abuse allegations. Drug taking etc - this film should be a two part.
The audience wants to be entertained , it can't be a 3 hour Wikipedia biography.
The key is to choose carefully which parts of his childhood need to be shown based on which parts of his adult life they're gonna show. They need to go with the ones that serve a purpose to either show his personality or explain things that happened later on in his life. Those things would need to be explained either way, whether you do it with MJ being an adult or a child, so it's not going to take up more time.
Say for example that you want to cover the topic of plastic surgery. If you do it through his childhood, then it would literally take only two seconds to show his father calling him ugly or big nose 2 or 3 times, just by inserting it into any other scene. Then as an adult, you don't even need to show MJ getting plastic surgery, you can just quickly mention that he got a nose job and that will be all that is needed, no other explanation necessary for people to understand why. You can then have a quick scene with a doctor diagnosing him with lupus and explaining to MJ that he will repeatedly need corrective surgeries on his nose because of it. That can cover all there is to say about Michael's nose in just two minutes, without even showing Michael getting plastic surgery.
The other option would be to show adult MJ talking about how his father used to call him ugly and showing him repeatedly going to the office of his plastic surgeon, which would be a rather boring scene. At the end of the day, the same information would need to be told, but showing a beautiful little child being called ugly hits a lot harder than hearing adult MJ talk about it.
Talking about the allegations seems almost impossible to me, especially with the whole fam tied up in the movie.
How do you handle all the accusations? Making sure it doesn't look like a total propaganda film is tough. Thinking of saying Michael got accused just for the money – risky move, could end up in a legal mess with Robson and Safechuck.
Seems pretty straightforward to me, they just need to show the facts, not opinions. For example, show Jordan Chandler describing Michael's private parts to the police, then show the scene where they are taking pictures of Michael and realizing that he is NOT circumcised. Show the scene where David Schwartz records his phone conversation with Evan Chandler and let Evan tell the viewer in his own words with verbatim quotes why he's doing all that. They could either add text on the screen to inform the viewer that those are actual quotes from the recorded tape or they could show a montage of real-life footage of MJ at the end of the movie and throw excerpts from the Evan Chandler tape in there so that the viewer can see that the movie didn't just make it up.
Most people don't even know that those tapes exist. Other than haters, who would still believe the allegations to be true if they heard those tapes? The biopic is the best chance they will ever get to let the public hear those tapes, so they better not miss that! I mean this is all the proof anyone needs, you've got the whole story right there and you don't even need to hear Michael's version of events:
Evan Chandler: I had a good communication with Michael. We were friends, you know. I liked him. I respected him and everything else for what he is, you know. There was no reason why he had to stop calling me. He could have called me.
Evan Chandler: When people cut off communication totally, you only have two choices: To forget about them, or you get frustrated by their action. I can't forget about them. I love them. That's it. I don't like them. I still love Jordy, but I do not like them because I do not like the people that they've become, but I do love them, and because I love them I don't want to see them [tape irregularity]. That's why I was willing to talk. I have nothing to gain by talking. If I go through with this, I win big time. There's no way that I lose. I've checked that out inside out.
David Schwartz: But when you say "winning," what are you talking about, "winning"?
Evan Chandler: I will get everything I want, and they will be totally -- they will be destroyed forever. They will be destroyed. June is gonna lose Jordy. She will have no right to ever see him again. Michael's career will be over.
David Schwartz: And does that help Jordy?
Evan Chandler: It's irrelevant to me.
Evan Chandler: There are other people involved that are waiting for my phone call that are intentionally going to be in certain positions. I paid them to do it. They're doing their job. I gotta just go ahead and follow through on the time zone. I mean the time set out. Everything is going according to a certain plan that isn't just mine. There's other people involved.
Evan Chandler: Let me put it to you this way: I have a set routine of words that I'm going to go in there that have been rehearsed and I'm going to say. Okay? Because I don't want to say anything that could be used against me.
Evan Chandler: Because this attorney I found -- I mean, I interviewed several, and I picked the nastiest son of a bitch I could find, and all he wants to do is get this out in the public as fast as he can, as big as he can and humiliate as many people as he can, and he's got a bad [tape irregularity]
Evan Chandler: I mean, it could be a massacre if I don't get what I want. But I do believe this person will get what he wants. So he would just really love [tape irregularity] nothing better than to have this go forward. He is nasty, he is mean, he is very smart, and he's hungry for the publicity [tape irregularity] better for him.
Evan Chandler: My instructions were to kill and destroy [tape irregularity], I'm telling you. I mean, and by killing and destroying, I'm going to torture them, Dave. Because that's what June has done to me. She has tortured me.
Evan Chandler: I mean, once I make that phone call, this guy's just going to destroy everybody in site in any devious, nasty, cruel way that he can do it. And I've given him full authority to do that.
Evan Chandler: It's gonna be bigger than all of us put together, and the whole thing's just gonna crash down on everybody and destroy everybody in its sight. That's [tape irregularity] humiliating, believe me.
David Schwartz: Yeah. And is that good?
Evan Chandler: Yeah. It's great.
David Schwartz: Why?
Evan Chandler: Great, because --
David Schwartz: I mean, is that how you're --
Evan Chandler: Because June and Jordy and Michael have forced me to take it to the extreme to get their attention. How pitiful, pitifuckingful they are to have done that.
