The role of Michael Jackson, King of Pop, has been cast for the forthcoming biopic.

Jaafar Jackson, Michael Jackson’s nephew, has been cast in the lead role in the upcoming biopic Michael, which will be directed by Antoine Fuqua (Emancipation). Fuqua made the announcement on his Instagram account on Monday morning.

“We are pleased to announce that @jafaarjackson will play the role of Michael in the next motion film event, which will trace the life and career of the man who rose to become the King of Pop. Coming soon, “Fuqua wrote beside a shot of Jaafar doing some of Michael’s iconic movements while wearing highly recognizable clothing. The photo was posted alongside the photo.

Michael is the most recent example of a current trend of singer biopics that have, up to this point, done well with viewers as well as award organizations. For example, Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis was nominated for eight Academy Awards only a week ago, and the film’s lead actor, Austin Butler, is in the running for the award for Best Actor. In 2019, Rami Malek was awarded that particular accolade for his depiction of Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen, in the film Bohemian Rhapsody. It should come as no surprise that Graham King, who was involved in the production of Bohemian Rhapsody, is now involved in the production of Michael.

To bring things a little bit closer to home, the jukebox musical MJ The Musical has been a hit on Broadway, with ticket sales totaling millions of dollars and leading performer Myles Frost winning the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical at the 2022 ceremony.

The documentary “will not shy away from the scandals of Jackson’s life,” the most notable of which are the many claims of child sexual assault (for which Jackson was tried and acquitted in 2005). These allegations were investigated in the 2009 documentary Leaving Neverland, which aired on HBO a decade after Michael Jackson passed away at the age of 50 in 2009. In the documentary, Wade Robson and James Safechuck claimed that Jackson sexually molested them for years when they were children. Jackson passed in 2009 at the age of 50. The estate of Michael Jackson has said that these charges are “completely baseless.”

Those who are curious about Jaafar’s abilities may see the music video for his song “Got Me Singing,” which was released in 2019, as it now has more than 8 million views on YouTube.