If you’ve ever wished you could see the late Michael Jackson in concert, one of the upcoming 2026 movies, Michael, will get you close to the experience thanks to Jaafar Jackson’s incredible performance as the King of Pop and the production’s commitment to recreating his presence. When CinemaBlend talked to the filmmakers of the Michael movie, they told us about what it was like to film stadium concert scenes in front of hundreds of extras.
Jaafar Jackson is the nephew of Michael Jackson, and has already been receiving high praise from the movie’s first audiences for a “flawless” performance. Here’s what director Antoine Fuqua said about what it was like to film the Michael Jackson concert scenes with 400+ extras and a full band on stage with him:
He walked out on stage and they just start screaming. And then, when that music comes on and he starts performing, it really was like you were there, and the extras were in it. It wasn't like, ‘Okay, action,’ and they're gonna pretend that music would come on. They would start dancing around and start screaming. There were moments I looked, I was like, ‘Do they think this is Michael?’ Like, it was so bizarre because when we weren't even rolling, they would be screaming ‘We want more.’ And, entertaining themselves. It was really special.
Oh, and this was on Jaafar’s first day on the production by the way! While the job of extras is basically to act in a background capacity, as the Michael director told us, there was zero need for the extras to play off anything. They were genuinely reacting to his performance. As Fuqua added that he thinks the extras didn’t know “what to expect” from Jaafar, along with these words:
We had to have extra cameras put in the audience. We have like six. And then I look at Graham like we need more coverage. We put two more cameras because we would see someone way in the back screaming and crying. And then I would see someone over there and I was like, ‘How do we capture [that]? It was so real and organic. So literally we would have our crew like, ‘You go over and get that.’ ‘Go, go grab this.’ And here's what's interesting in a movie: you do it over and over. It was the same energy each time. You think you're gonna burn 'em out. The music would start playing and they would just disappear into it. It was amazing.
The first performance that was filmed for Michael was “Bad”, which you’ll find later in the movie, since the movie covers his career from childhood through to the 1980s. This story really speaks to how much work Jaafar Jackson and the production put into making people feel like they were really seeing the late pop star. The filmmakers even told us that they didn’t necessarily seek out Michael Jackson fans when casting the extras either. As producer Graham King also told us:
I think they really gave Jafaar confidence on that stage just organically because they were rooting for him. They were cheering for him, they were crying for him. It was a lot of love. You could feel it going from the audience to the stage and vice versa. It felt like a mini Michael concert.
Talk about a great first day at work for Jaafar Jackson. The Michael movie covers a ton of famous songs from Jackson’s career as shown by the movie’s soundtrack track list and the Michael trailer teases how audiences will get to see iconic moments recreated like the Jackson 5 days, Thriller music video and more. You can also check out an awesome clip from the movie that shows off Jaafar Jackson’s fancy footwork.
Michael also stars Colman Domingo as Michael Jackson’s father Joe, Nia Long as his mom Katherine and Miles Teller as his manager John Branca. You can see it in theaters on April 24.
