UNIVERSAL CITY, CALIFORNIA — Director Antoine Fuqua attended an early screening of the upcoming Michael Jackson biopic Michael at a sound stage on the Universal Studios lot in California, joining roughly two dozen people gathered for last-minute trouble-shooting. Fuqua offered feedback on music, sound design and dialogue during the session.

"It's awesome, man. I enjoyed it," Fuqua said at the screening. He suggested that the music fade away in some moments in the manner of older Motown songs, leaving listeners wanting more, and recommended adding New York sounds in the background of a New York office scene. He also expressed concern that some automated dialogue replacement moments did not fit the tone of the film.

Fuqua has been among Hollywood's most successful directors for the past few decades, with a résumé that includes seventeen feature films and six documentaries, along with projects on which he served as producer or executive producer. He is known for films about tough guys on tough missions, including the 2001 movie Training Day, starring Ethan Hawke and Denzel Washington as a corrupt cop. His filmography also includes Olympus Has Fallen, about terrorists attacking the White House, the Equalizer trilogy and Emancipation, a 2022 slavery drama starring Will Smith. Fuqua's older cousin Harvey was a doo-wop singer who became an executive at Motown Records. Fuqua lives outside Los Angeles.

The film's lead producer, Graham King, an Englishman who also produced Bohemian Rhapsody, has been working since 2018 to bring a Michael Jackson film to theatres. Bohemian Rhapsody made more than nine hundred million dollars at the box office when it was released that same year. At the screening, King suggested increasing the crowd noise during one of the concert scenes. "Those of us that have been lucky enough to be at a Michael concert, it was fucking chaos. You want to feel that," King said.

Michael Jackson, who died in 2009, is played in the film by his nephew Jaafar Jackson, the son of Jermaine Jackson. Colman Domingo portrays Joe Jackson, Michael Jackson's father. The film was made in cooperation with the Jackson estate, and investors, including Lionsgate, committed approximately one hundred fifty million dollars to the project. The trailer for Michael was released on YouTube in November and received more than one hundred million views in its first twenty-four hours.