Filmmaker Dan Reed is not at all surprised Michael Jackson’s estate has a problem with his new film.
“Leaving Neverland” is a documentary about two men, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who allege they were sexually abused as children by Michael Jackson.
The pop superstar’s estate disparaged Reed and his documentary in a series of statements, calling the movie “a tabloid character assassination” and insisting “it isn’t a documentary.”
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“They have a very precious asset to protect,” Reed argued in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter. “Every time a song plays, a cash register goes ka-ching. It doesn’t surprise me that they’ve come out fighting in defence of their asset.
“It is a four-hour documentary by an experienced documentarian with a long track record in investigation and telling complex stories, and this is a complex story,” he continued. “So I’d say it’s beyond doubt, a documentary. Anyone with any knowledge of that form would recognize a documentary. A four-hour piece, is that a tabloid?”
Reed assures, “I didn’t characterize Jackson at all in the film, I think if you watch it you’ll have noticed that it’s a story about these two families and Jackson is an element of that story. But I don’t seek to characterize him at all. I don’t comment on Jackson. It’s not a film about Michael.”
According to the filmmaker, his works really is “an account of sexual abuse, how sexual abuse happens and then how the consequences play out later in life.”
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The “Thriller” singer’s family released a statement on Monday, following the film’s Sundance Film Festival debut on January 25. “We can’t just stand by while this public lynching goes on, and the vulture tweeters and others who never met Michael go after him,” the statement read.
“The film isn’t a documentary, it is the kind of tabloid character assassination Michael Jackson endured in life, and now in death,” a separate statement from Jackson’s estate argued. “The film takes uncorroborated allegations that supposedly happened 20 years ago and treats them as fact.”
The documentary was well received by critics from THR and Rolling Stone.
