Johnny Depp producing Michael Jackson musical told from perspective of his glove
In one of the stranger stories of 2019 – and that’s saying something – Johnny Depp is producing a Michael Jackson musical, told from the perspective of the King of Pop’s glove.
No, you’re not having a fever dream.
Depp, 56, is on board to produce Julian Nitzberg’s play For the Love of a Glove: An Unauthorized Musical Fable About the Life of Michael Jackson, as told by his Glove.
Catchy.
According to Page Six, the musical will ‘look into the strange forces that shaped Michael and the scandals that bedeviled his reputation’ and is narrated by an all-talking, all-singing glove.
The play features life-size puppets of the Jackson Five, Donny Osmond and Bubbles The Chimp, as well as Corey Feldman – who this year said he could ‘no longer defend’ Jackson following the ‘horrendous crimes’ he was accused of in the documentary Leaving Neverland.
Nitzberg told Page Six that he first came up with the concept of For The Love of A Glove 17 years ago when he was asked to write a Michael Jackson movie by a TV network, but didn’t know how to address the allegations of child abuse levelled at the Billie Jean star.
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He said: ‘I said, how’s this? Everything MJ has been accused of has actually been caused by his glove, which is actually an alien from outer space [and] feeds on virgin boy blood.’
The concept was turned down, but nearly two decades later, Nitzberg returned to the idea as a musical.
Depp’s company Infinitum Nihil got involved with the project after previously working on the development of a biopic of Tiny Tim, which never made it to fruition.
While the unauthorised musical is debuting in Los Angeles in January, an official musical based on the music of the late King of Pop called MJ is hitting Broadway next year too, while Thriller Live, a musical based on Jackson’s music and legacy, still runs in London’s West End.
These new projects come after the airing of Leaving Neverland, in which Wade Robson and James Safechuck allege they were molested by Jackson as children.
Following the documentary, radio stations began to ban Jackson’s music, while The Simpsons took the episode Stark Raving Dad, guest starring Jackson, out of rotation.
The California Court of Appeal this month issued a tentative ruling that could overturn the original dismissal of Robson and Safechuck’s lawsuits against the Jackson estate.
If a trial is granted, it would leave Robson and Safechuck room to sue the Michael Jackson Estate for millions like they did originally did six years ago.
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The estate of Jackson – who died in 2009 aged 50 – have categorically denied the allegations.
Meanwhile, Depp’s $50 million (£37.8 million) defamation action against ex-wife Amber Heard has been delayed to August 2020, with the actor apparently missing the deadline to produce all records related to his drug and alcohol abuse.
The Fantastic Beasts star filed the lawsuit in relation to an op-ed written by Heard, in which she spoke about her experiences of being a domestic abuse survivor.
While Depp wasn’t specifically mentioned in the piece, the actor’s legal team has claimed that the article’s implication was that Depp ‘perpetrated domestic violence against her’ – allegations he ‘categorically’ denies.
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