http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplayl...michael-jacksons-off-the-wall-record-20150218
Spike Lee Will Follow-Up ‘Bad 25’ With A Doc About Michael Jackson’s ‘Off The Wall’ Record
... Lee had suggested he’d love to do more Michael Jackson album docs if the singer's estate and Sony/Epic Records, which released the majority of his recordings before and after his death, were willing, and it looks like both were pleased with “Bad 25” and have thus signed off. In an interview with Thompson On Hollywood about “Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus,” Lee revealed that he is currently working on a documentary about Jackson’s pioneering 1979 disco-pop solo album Off The Wall, which launched the singer into mega-stardom and led to the pop cultural juggernaut Thriller.
“I recently did ‘Bad 25,’ a making of Michael Jackson’s album and now we’re making ‘Off The Wall,’” he said.
... But during a recent Meet The Filmmaker Apple Store chat for “Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus,” when asked if he would return to “the Republic Of Brooklyn” for more narrative features set within the borough, Lee reminded the audience that one is already written. “Definitely,” he said, “I have a script that's a mutherf*cker. I just gotta get the money for it. It's called ‘Brooklyn Loves MJ.’ So if we get the money for that, you'll like that too.”
“Brooklyn Loves MJ,” which we've written about previously, is a Cain and Abel-esque story set against a backdrop of gentrification in Lee’s Fort Greene neighborhood during the summer of '09, when fans were mourning Jackson's death. Given that the singer's death and music is written into the script, including his likeness, image and myriad references beyond just an inclusion in the title, we’d assumed the stoppage on the project —it was all ready to go with a cast in 2009— was due to music rights. But since Lee, the MJ estate and Sony are on board for further Jackson documentaries, it sounds like funding is the main obstacle. Calling Megan Ellison, the current patron saint of American auteurs: do the right thing.
