A decades-old lawsuit led to glaring omission from Michael Jackson biopic

May 6-In spite of a lukewarm reception from critics, the biopic "Michael" has reignited Michael Jackson fans' imaginations. It's dominated the box office over the last two weeks, taking in more than $430 million worldwide en route to becoming the highest-grossing music biopic ever.

But Michael Jackson superfans, along with many casual observers, might notice one very large omission - 2,700-acres, to be exact - from the film's running time of about two hours and 10 minutes: Neverland Ranch.

And that exclusion was not an accident. In fact, the Neverland Ranch was originally the main set piece that the film's story arc revolved around. But a civil lawsuit from the 1990s changed all that, along with the film's entire narrative.

The Neverland Ranch has a long and storied history that intertwines with Jackson's own legacy.

When the King of Pop became the world's obsession during the 1980s, the fabled property also quickly rose to become a household name toward the end of that decade. And when Jackson's legal and financial troubles began in the early 1990s, the property fell into steep decline. Eventually, it was sold to billionaire Ron Burkle to satisfy bankruptcy liens against Jackson's estate. Burkle was one of Jackon's friends and business partners; he also happens to be a producer on the new biopic.

Located in the Santa Ynez Valley, about 40 minutes northwest of downtown Santa Barbara, Neverland was Jackson's found paradise and personal retreat. Even the way he stumbled upon it is the stuff of legend. In the fall of 1983, he and Paul McCartney shot a video for their hit duet "Say Say Say" in Los Alamos. Paul and Linda, his wife at the time, were staying nearby on the property, then known as Sycamore Valley Ranch, during the video's production and invited Jackson out to visit.

Jackson instantly fell in love with the country estate and vowed to return, according to his sister La Toya Jackson's 2011 autobiography, "Starting Over." He bought the property for $19.5 million in 1988 and renamed it Neverland Ranch.

The movie "Michael" takes the audience from early childhood and his tragic accident, when he was lit on fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial in 1984, to a career highlight of packing more than a half million fans into Wembley Stadium over the course of seven shows. Though the film thematically touches upon Jackson's fascination with Peter Pan, a boy who never grows up, and his fantastical world of make-believe, the movie never makes it out to the Santa Ynez Valley, even though many key scenes from the film were reportedly shot there.

In the spring of 2024, production crews descended upon the ranch. According to film permits obtained following a public records request by SFGATE, the list of activities on the property included "dialogue, petting zoo, stunt." Filming took place on the property between April 15 and May 1 in 2024 from 6 a.m. to midnight daily.

The adjacent Figueroa Mountain Road was also listed on the permit for "daylight hours" filming from April 25 through April 28 of that year, with shooting that included the use of helicopters. The total personnel listed on the permit for participation in the shoot during that time was 310.

The Neverland sequence was supposed to be a key set piece and the movie's opener to kick off the story. "When shooting finally began, Fuqua thought that he'd found a way to deploy the adrenalized style he's known for," the New Yorker reported in its April 2026 article on director Antoine Fuqua and the film. "He shot a surprising action sequence: a reenactment of the 1993 police raid on Neverland Ranch, Jackson's home and personal amusement park, on the far outskirts of Santa Barbara."

The sequence depicting the Neverland Ranch raid and Jackson being arrested was supposed to be the start of the film. "I shot him being stripped naked, treated like an animal, a monster," Fuqua told the New Yorker, noting he did not initially want to shy away from the controversy that marred the end of Jackson's career and his legacy.

But the Neverland Ranch scenes, and the story Fuqua had crafted, were eventually eliminated due to a $23 million civil suit settlement in 1994 with the family of Jordan Chandler, a then 13-year-old boy who alleged that Jackson had molested him during a sleepover at the ranch. Jackson denied any wrongdoing, and, in a separate criminal trial involving allegations of child molestation, he was fully acquitted of all charges on June 13, 2005. He never set foot on the Neverland Ranch property again.

The New Yorker reported that in 2024, following the completion of the film's main photography, producer Graham King delivered major news to Fuqua. "Jackson's settlement with the Chandler family turned out to include an agreement that forbade the estate to participate in depictions of the events around Chandler's allegation," the outlet said. "The film that Fuqua had made was essentially unreleasable - not because Fuqua was too critical of Jackson but, in a sense, because he was too eager to defend him."

After initially wanting to scrap the project, Fuqua pivoted and shrank the film's timeline. Instead of starting with the Neverland Ranch raid, the movie ends with a re-creation of one of the famous 1988 Wembley Stadium shows during Jackson's "Bad" tour, with Jackson performing the titular track. After the song, the screen goes to black with a title card that reads, "His Story Continues."

The movie's sudden end, the omission of the Neverland Ranch and the trials of Jackson's life to come have sparked rumors of a sequel. For now, "Michael" as a standalone is simply a retelling of part of Michael Jackson's life in Gary, Indiana, and Encino, California, not the Santa Ynez Valley.

"Instead of chronicling his downfall," the New Yorker continued, "Fuqua merely chronicles his rise - and, you might say, his emancipation."

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