“Michael” Trailer debuts at CinemaCon

On Wednesday, cinemagoers were surprised with the trailer of the upcoming biopic about the King of Pop, “Michael” at CinemaCon in Las Vegas.

Producer Graham King revealed the project will include more than 30 songs and teased it would be “long” in order to do the music star’s story justice.

The trailer began with a look at the Jackson 5 performing “ABC” on TV, and then cut to a 1990s-era concert of Jackson performing “Man in the Mirror.” There are also images of a masked Jackson being hounded by fans and paparazzi. Jackson’s real-life nephew Jaafar Jackson stars as Michael, and in the trailer has a strong resemblance to his uncle and appears to have captured his dancing and stage presence.

“You never were like anyone else,” Jackson’s mother (portrayed in the biopic by Nia Long) says at one point in the trailer.

In voice-over, 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 shown to the exhibitor crowd today at the Caesars Colosseum 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 performing onstage as the King of Pop. 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 his mother Katherine Jackson adds, “You have a very special light, so let the light shine into the world.”

“Michael” hits theaters on April 18, 2025.