If you thought the sad story of the final days of one of the greatest icons the music world has ever known could use a little more lens flare and hatred of airplanes, you’re in luck. J.J. Abrams has signed on to adapt Before You Judge Me: The Triumph and Tragedy of Michael Jackson’s Last Days.
The Star Trek director plans to turn the Tavis Smiley book — which drops on June 21 — into a miniseries for Warner Bros. Television. As the name suggests, the show and the book are a dive into the last months of Michael Jackson’s life when he was preparing for his planned 50-show run at London’s O2 Arena. The book’s publisher describes the period covered as “filled with deep lows and soaring highs, a constant hunt for privacy, and the pressure and fame that made him socially fragile and almost — ultimately — unable to live.”
The deal is the second such deal between Smiley, Abrams and WBTV. Last year they teamed up to produce an adaptation of Smiley’s similar chronicle of the last days of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Whatever happens we can almost guarantee three things: we may learn some new things even superfans didn’t know about the King of Pop, it won’t be as odd as Dan Harmon’s stop-motion movie about MJ’s chimp and it will be 1000 times more based-in-reality than that Marlon Brando/MJ road trip film.
(Via The Hollywood Reporter)
