Antoine Fuqua Calls Cutting Scenes from “Michael ”‘Exact Same Situation’ as Making Will Smith's “Emancipation” Before Oscars Slap

Staff AuthorMon, April 27, 2026 at 4:39 PM UTC

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Antoine Fuqua on June 22, 2022; Jaafar Jackson as Michael Jackson in Michael; Will Smith in EmancipationCredit: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic; Glen Wilson/Lionsgate; Alamy -

Antoine Fuqua compared challenges during Michael's reshoots to making Emancipation after Will Smith's Oscars slap

Reshoots on Michael were required due to a settlement barring dramatization of the 1993 allegations against the King of Pop

Despite production challenges, Michael broke records for a biopic's opening weekend box office performance in North America

A couple of director Antoine Fuqua's recent movies have faced significant challenges before their release dates.

In a Sunday, April 26, interview with Deadline, the Michael director, 60, likened his experience having to reshoot and reframe significant aspects of the new movie to finishing his 2022 movie, Emancipation, after star Will Smith's infamous 2022 Oscars slap.

"All movies have different challenges, but this one was really unique," he said, of altering scenes featuring allegations of child sex abuse made against Jackson in 1993. "It was an extra punch in the gut for me at that moment, because I was in the exact same situation with Emancipation."

"I was literally handing in the director's cut when Will [Smith] slapped Chris [Rock]," he added. "I was floored and devastated and knew what that meant overall, and that the movie would be written off. This was a similar situation, because I was handing in the director's cut and I get this call. That was a tough day."

Antoine Fuqua at the Los Angeles premiere of 'Michael' on April 20, 2026Credit: ulian Hamilton/FilmMagic

When asked if not addressing the '90s allegations brought against Jackson in the film weighed "heavy on your mind," Fuqua admitted, "It definitely did for a while, because we had to rethink everything. That was a tough period."

"[Producer Graham King], [screenwriter] John Logan and I banged our heads around. We had a lot of meetings. But we clicked into it at the same time: The movie is called Michael so you have to focus on Michael. Unless you can truly take your time, let's go back to the beginning and really show people who he was on the stage," the Training Day director said.

"He's a superhero on the stage. Just like a human being, movies have the power of empathy to just say, 'This is a human being. No one is perfect.' It was important to take the audience through a process of how do you get to wherever it's going to go in a second movie; for people to get a bigger idea of his personality and what shaped him."

Several reports throughout Michael's production suggested that the film originally featured scenes related to allegations made in 1993 that Jackson, who died in 2009 at 50, sexually abused then-13-year-old Jordan Chandler.

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In January 2025, Puck reported that a settlement made between Chandler and Jackson included an agreement that the situation could not be dramatized in a movie. (Jackson and his estate have long denied numerous allegations made against the pop star.)

According to that outlet, the agreement was overlooked until after Michael was in production. As a result, significant portions of the movie were reshot, leading Fuqua and producer Graham King to receive millions of additional dollars in payment for their work on the movie, as Bloomberg reported on Friday, April 24.

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Back in 2022, Fuqua and Smith, 57, teamed up for Emancipation, an Apple TV movie that saw Smith portray a runaway slave in the 1860s during the Civil War.

The movie's December 2022 release was largely overshadowed by the aftermath of Smith slapping Chris Rock on stage at that year's Academy Awards. Smith even told Entertainment Weekly at the time that he believed he "could have potentially penalized my team" due to the amount of controversy the Oscars incident brought to his career.

Will Smith in 2022's EmancipationCredit: Apple TV+

Despite the reshoots on Michael, Fuqua's movie proved immensely popular at the box office. The film broke records for the best box office performance for a biopic in North America in its opening weekend and made $314 million worldwide in its first weekend in theaters.

Michael is in theaters now.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”