There’s fresh news for fans still counting down to the big Michael Jackson movie. The film is simply called “Michael,” and on Tuesday it landed a new award nomination in New York.
The nomination came from the Gotham Awards, one of the most respected film honors in the country. Every fall the Gothams help kick off awards season with a ceremony in New York, and this year the list of nominees came out on Oct 27.
“Michael” made the cut for the Gotham Audience Award. That’s the prize for the movies people actually turned out for in the biggest way.
And it’s not the only huge movie in that category.
Eight films are up for the Audience Award, and one of them is “Project Hail Mary,” the space adventure starring Hollywood favorite Ryan Gosling. If that matchup sounds familiar, it should. Jaafar Jackson, Michael’s real-life nephew who plays him in the film, already came out ahead of Gosling once this fall. He took Best Actor at the Astra Awards back in early October. Now their two movies are lined up against each other all over again.
Here’s something important to be clear about. This nomination belongs to the film itself, not to any single actor. Jaafar wasn’t named in the acting categories this time around. The Audience Award goes to the people who made the movie, and the Gotham folks spelled that out plainly when they announced it.
“Gotham members will vote to determine the winner, and the award will be presented to the film’s credited director(s) and producer(s).”
So for “Michael,” a win would go to director Antoine Fuqua and producer Graham King, the two men who steered the whole project.
The other seven nominees are “Backrooms,” “La Bola Negra,” “The Drama,” “The Invite,” “Obsession,” “Project Hail Mary” and “You Can See Everything.” The organizers picked the field by looking at how well each movie did in its opening weekend per theater, then checked that against the year’s best-rated and most-watched films at the box office and on the movie site Letterboxd.
From here it’s in the voters’ hands. Gotham members, not the public, decide the winner, and the name gets read out on Monday, Nov 30, at a black-tie dinner at Cipriani Wall Street in New York. That same night the “Michael” team is also set to receive a special musical tribute.
Jaafar has a little more good news of his own. Gold Derby, a site that tracks the awards race, now has him eighth in the early odds for a Golden Globe nomination for Best Drama Actor. One of their writers noted that Jaafar “has drawn rave reviews for his transformative portrayal of his uncle, the King of Pop, in Michael.” Those Globe nominations are due Dec 7.
There’s no footage of the announcement to watch just yet, so the best look right now is the recent photos of Jaafar on the red carpet, including his stop at the film’s Oct 17 screening in Los Angeles. For anyone waiting on this movie, the run-up keeps getting more fun.