This month, HBO Max posted a promotional image of Jaafar Jackson as his uncle — red leather jacket, gold lettering — with a four-word caption: “The King of Pop has arrived.”
The biopic Michael streams on HBO Max from 25 September. And given the history between that company and the Jackson estate, it is one of the more remarkable pieces of marketing of the year.
To understand why, you have to go back to 1992.
That year, HBO paid a then-record $21 million to broadcast Michael Jackson’s Live in Bucharest concert from the Dangerous tour. It became the highest-rated program in the network’s history. Buried in that 1992 contract was a clause most people never heard of—a promise that HBO would not disparage Michael Jackson.
Michael Jackson – Live In Bucharest (The Dangerous Tour)
Twenty-seven years later, that clause went to war.
In 2019, HBO co-produced and aired Leaving Neverland, a documentary containing allegations against Jackson. The estate — which has always maintained his innocence and notes that he was acquitted on all counts at his 2005 trial — sued for $100 million. It argued that the documentary broke the Bucharest contract. HBO called the case frivolous. A judge sent it to arbitration.
The dispute dragged on for five years. It was resolved in October 2024, which HBO described as amicable — and Leaving Neverland was quietly removed from the platform as part of it.
Michael Jackson Biopic Coming To HBO Max
The film has now passed a billion dollars at the box office and become the highest-grossing biopic ever made, overtaking Oppenheimer. And HBO Max is carrying it.
The HBO Max deal covers select territories — Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. In the United States, the film went to Starz in August.
Still, the shape of it is hard to ignore. A concert HBO bought in 1992 started a fight that lasted five years. Now HBO is the one saying the King has arrived.