Yes, this just happened — to big cheers.
Producer Graham King showed up to close Lionsgate CinemaCon 2024 session in a big way with a very emotional first trailer to the movie which hits theaters on April 18, 2025. Antoine Fuqua is still directing the movie, but a first look clip was assembled.
The footage begins with scenes of screaming fans and cuts to Jackson as a little boy whose mother tells him, “There might be some people who think you’re different and that’s going to make life a little harder for you, but you never were like anyone else.”
In voiceover, a grown-up Jackson says of performing, “It transports your entire being, that’s what I want the world to feel like – magic.”
Some of the footage we saw today appears to take place during the Off the Wall era as well as that of Bad – “Man in the Mirror” is a key song heard throughout. We also see the pop singer’s nephew Jaafar Jackson as uncle Michael performing on stage. At one point, his voice over says, “When I’m not on stage, everything feels foreign to me.”
A voice over from what appears to be Katherine Jackson: “You have a very special light, so let the light shine into the world.”