It has been over four years since I've posted here, although most of that is because I now get my MJ news on Twitter and haven't felt the need to post. Overall, I'm not surprised Leaving Neverland more-or-less flopped despite the pushing of some big names and airing on HBO.
One big reason is that Robison made his claimed back in 2013 and despite some coverage at the time, he quickly faded from mainstream view. People didn't believe him, plain and simple. They found him more creditable in 2005 when he was grilled by the DA and under oath to tell the truth and said nothing happened. Now he's coming out with these allegations after the man died four years ago (from the time he made his claim) and was suing his estate. Even people who questioned Michael smelled a rat and those who did believed Robison are the usual suspects. So with Robison already being considered unbelievable back in 2013, it was extremely unlikely that he would be more convincing in 2019 after his failed lawsuit. In fact, it's worst for him since we have court documents of him lying and changing his story under oath. So when people go on about Robison's believability, it's easily rebutted by just posting the court documents.
Another big reason, Michael is dead. Part of the reason why the pedo hunt got so much buzzed when he was alive was seeing what reaction Michael would have and the whole 'will he go to jail'. It's sick and twisted, but it's schadenfreude. But since Michael isn't here anymore, people are just not as invested. There is no schadenfreude to be have kicking a corpse. In fact, people have a dim view of those who disparage the dead, justly or not, especially from someone who did nothing but praised the person in life.
Also in the US at least, we have far biggest issues than re-trialing if Michael was a pedo given that our president is under investigating among other things.
Finally, the doc was too freaking long. How many people are honestly going to watch four hours of two men talking about how they were rape? And it's extremely one-sided. Most docs of this nature at least try to present a rebutted to the other side, but this didn't even bother. From the lay person, it was boring.
The fandom did also help, although I personally wouldn't even heard of this doc before it aired if it wasn't for my Twitter feed. When it did aired, my mom talked about it and was pissed, but the story seemed to almost died in 24 hours. No major networks like CNN or MSNBC to my knowledge really covered it either. And the ones that did more or less had a shrugged reaction and moved on to something else.
So yeah, not surprised at all, and I do hope Brett do sue for dragging his name into this mess. I also think the estate did the right thing to downplay the documentary, while also given a scatting letter to HBO over what they've done. I think if the estate made a bigger deal of this, more people would have watched out of curiosity.