In “No, This Isn’t From The Onion” News: Joseph Fiennes Is Playing Michael Jackson In A British TV Movie

January 26, 2016 / Posted by:

A few years ago, Sam Kashner, a contributing editor for Vanity Fair, gave us the 9/11 road trip story of our dreams. I’m sure you’ve already memorized this story word for word and you tell it to yourself every night before bed, but I’ll give you the quick version anyway. Sam claimed that on 9/11, Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando were all in NYC for his concert. After the attacks, Michael’s friends in Saudi Arabia told him to get the hell out of NYC because they believed more attacks were going to happen. MJ, Liz and Marlon couldn’t take a private jet since the airspace was closed, so they rented a car and drove themselves out of there. Marlon apparently made them stop at almost every KFC and Burger King and they got as far as Ohio. One of Elizabeth’s assistants said the story was a lie. But who cares, I still wanted Hollywood to make that movie because it’s a perfect story. Well, it’s being made into a movie and the casting is filled with more WTF than the story.

The Guardian says that one of the most magical moments in history will be made into a dramedy for the British channel Sky Arts. Joseph Fiennes is going to play Michael Jackson, Stockard Channing is doing Elizabeth Taylor and Brian Cox has been cast as Marlon Brando. I guess Joseph’s casting was announced in December and either I missed it or it was full of way too much fuckery for even my brain to digest and I blacked it out. But Joseph said this about the movie back in December:

“It’s a challenge. It’s a comedy. It doesn’t poke mean fun, but it’s a story, possibly urban legend, whereby Michael, Marlon Brando, and Liz Taylor were all together the day before 9/11 doing a concert. Airspace was shut down and they couldn’t get out and Michael had the bright idea to go to hire a car and drive. It’s a fun, lighthearted tongue-in-cheek road trip of what celebrity of that kind is like. But also it’s rather beautiful and poignant about their relationships as well.”

Since they cast the dude from Shakespeare In Love as Michael Jackson circa 2001, they should’ve kept the question marks coming by casting Brian Cox as Elizabeth Taylor and Stockard Channing as Marlon Brando. Was Detective La Toya not available to play MJ or something?! What am I saying? Of course she’s not available. Making a Murderer’s Steven Avery probably hired her to get to the bottom of EVERYTHING for him.

And it’s a good thing Cameron Crowe isn’t directing this because he would’ve cast Emma Stone as MJ.

Pics: Getty

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