Emmy-winning filmmaker Dan Reed opens up to Variety about the 'icky' Michael Jackson biopic and how it pushes 'a false narrative around a man who’s a pedophile.'
By Marlow Stern
Plus IconMarlow Stern
Chief Correspondent
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Courtesy of HBO It is, to this day, the only film screening I’ve attended that was inspected by bomb-sniffing dogs.
The premiere of “Leaving Neverland,” a documentary exploring Wade Robson and James Safechuck’s child sexual-abuse allegations against pop legend Michael Jackson, had received numerous terroristic threats from Jackson loyalists in the days leading up to its unveiling at Park City’s Egyptian Theatre during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. In the film, Robson and Safechuck come forward to accuse Jackson of a cycle of abuse that began when they were young children — 7 and 10 years old, respectively — in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. They allege that Jackson convinced their younger selves that they were in love, plying them with expensive gifts, alienating them from their parents, and even throwing a mock wedding between Safechuck and Jackson replete with rings. Robson and Safechuck also recount, in graphic detail, how Jackson allegedly subjected them to various sex acts when they were kids. Jackson had paid millions to Jordan Chandler and Jason Francia, two boys who’d accused the King of Pop of child sexual abuse, but he could not silence Robson and Safechuck. By the end of the four-hour-plus film, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
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