https://deadline.com/2019/02/finding-neverland-lawsuit-michael-jackson-estate-sues-hbo-1202562002/
Michael Jackson Estate Hits HBO With $100M ‘Leaving Neverland’ Lawsuit
The burgeoning battle between the estate of Michael Jackson and HBO over the controversial Leaving Neverland sex abuse documentary is moving into a full-scale legal war that could cost the premium cabler up to $100 million.
“The Jackson Estate will seek all damages proximately caused by HBO’s reprehensible disparagement of Michael Jackson, which could exceed $100 million should HBO succeed in the damage it is intending to cause to the legacy of Michael Jackson,” said an injunction and arbitration seeking breach of contract complaint filed today by lawyers from Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert LL and Freedman + Tailtelman LLP in L.A. Superior Court (read it here).
https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/mj-arbitration-doc-1.pdf
“Petitioners further pray that the arbitrator award punitive damages in the maximum amount permissible if and when Petitioners show their entitlement to such damages,” the 53-page filing adds.
Having premiered under a heavy police presence at the Sundance Film Festival last month, the Dan Reed directed Leaving Neverland is set to debut on HBO on March 3 and 4.
“HBO breached its agreement not to disparage Michael Jackson by producing and selling to the public a one-sided marathon of unvetted propaganda to shamelessly exploit an innocent man no longer here to defend himself,” Jackson estate attorney Howard Weitzman told Deadline Thursday. “
“HBO could have and should have ensured that Leaving Neverland was properly sourced, fact checked and a fair and balanced representation,” he added in language similar to a letter sent to HBO CEO Richard Plepler over a week ago. “Instead they chose to fund and produce a film where they knew the two subjects had for many years testified under oath and told family, friends and law enforcement that Mr. Jackson did nothing inappropriate to either of them.”
HBO did not respond to request for comment on today’s legal move.
However, HBO execs asserted earlier this month that they stood by the film and nothing was going to stop it from airing in early March. “The one thing I would say about this documentary is I would ask everybody to watch it and make their judgments after seeing it,” the premium cabler’s programming chief Casey Bloys asserted on February 21.
“Nearly four years after Michael died they suddenly changed their recollections, sued the Estate of Michael Jackson for hundreds of millions of dollars and had all of their lawsuits dismissed,” Weitzman continued in his statement attacking Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who claim in the film that they were sexually abused by the ‘Thriller’ superstar when they were children. “Yet they are still seeking money, having appealed. HBO and the director were well aware of their financial motives and that ample opposing facts are available from numerous sources, but made the unconscionable decision to bury any evidence casting doubt on their chosen narrative. Had they made an objective film it would have allowed viewers to make up their own minds about these allegations, instead of having a television network dictate to them that they must accept these false claims about Michael Jackson.”
Since it was announced in early January that Leaving Neverland would open at Sundance, Jackson fans around the world have taken to social media and elsewhere to condemn the documentary.
With the constant whiff of legal action in the air from the very beginning, representatives for the estate of Jackson — who died in 2009, four years after being acquitted of seven counts of child molestation and two counts of giving a drug to a 13-year-old boy — previously tainted Neverland as “just another rehash of dated and discredited allegations.”
