BREAKING Another suspect arrested in Toronto Pearson airport gold heist: police
Another suspect is in custody in connection with the gold heist at Toronto Pearson International Airport last year, police say.
Michael Jackson's musical legacy never left, but a kind of comeback is coming.
With a series of court victories that bring the end to serious legal crises, with a Broadway show beginning and a Cirque du Soleil show returning after a long pandemic pause, the Jackson business is on the upswing 12 years after the pop superstar's death.
Very recently, things looked grim. The 2019 HBO documentary “ Leaving Neverland ” raised child molestation allegations anew. The once-dead lawsuits brought by the two men featured in it had been revived by changes in the law. And a decision in the estate's appeal of a $700 million tax bill was taking years to arrive.
“I was always optimistic,” John Branca, the entertainment attorney who worked with Jackson through many of his biggest triumphs and now serves as co-executor of his estate, told The Associated Press in an interview at his Beverly Hills home. “Michael inspired the planet and his music still does. There was never any doubt about that.”
The optimism was warranted. A succession of court decisions came. One accusers' lawsuit was dismissed in October. The other was tossed out in April. In May, a ruling in the tax case slashed the bill dramatically. The estate suddenly stands nearly clear of a dozen years of disputes. That means Branca expects that in the next 18 months it can finally be taken out of probate court and turned into a trust for Jackson's three children, who are all now adults.
And the focus of the estate can now shift back to presenting Jackson to the world.
The first priority is the revival of the Cirque du Soleil show, “Michael Jackson: One” at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. It is slated to reopen Aug. 19 after a coronavirus closure of nearly a year and a half, in time for a major celebration there planned for Jackson's Aug. 27 birthday.
The Broadway show, “MJ: The Musical,” will follow quickly on its heels, the first of several planned projects.
Branca said the delay of well over a year, as happened for all of Broadway, was “frustrating” but he has renewed excitement about “MJ: The Musical” and shared new details.
“It's not a chronological depiction of Michael's life,” he said. “It's more impressionistic, inspired by Michael's life and his music. It takes place as Michael is preparing for a tour and MTV wants to get an interview. Michael's very press shy, and slowly but surely as they develop a relationship begins to talk about different parts of his life that then get enacted in the show.”
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage wrote the show's book. Tony Award-winner Christopher Wheeldon is directing and choreographing. Broadway newcomer Myles Frost will star as Jackson, after Ephraim Sykes dropped out to shoot a movie. Rehearsals resume in September, and previews begin in December.
Branca said he's proud of the diversity the show will bring to the stage.
“The cast is obviously largely Black,” Branca said, “In an era where that's sorely wanted on Broadway.”
Successes aside, Branca feels lingering bitterness about director Dan Reed's “Leaving Neverland” and what he felt were American media outlets that “don't have the time or the wherewithal to do the research to figure out what's true and what's not true.”
Hence, the estate's last lingering lawsuit, now in private arbitration, is one that it brought itself, and one Branca very much wanted filed, against HBO over the documentary.
“I was very angry at HBO and Dan Reed and I still am because here's the thing: You can say anything you want about somebody who's dead. They're not here to protect themselves,” Branca said.
The two men featured in the documentary are appealing the dismissals of their lawsuits. HBO has defended “Leaving Neverland” as a valid and important piece of documentary journalism.
Ironically, the victory handed to the estate in its tax case came in part because the judge believed the value of Jackson's image and likeness had been severely diminished by such allegations at the time of his death, despite his acquittal at his 2005 trial for child molestation. It was one aspect of an all-around victory for the estate that's bringing a far smaller bill that's being calculated now.
Under the guidance of Branca and his more behind-the-scenes co-executor John McClain, the estate has brought in $2.5 billion in revenue in the past 11 years, and Jackson has remained the top earning deceased celebrity every year since his death at age 50 from a lethal dose of the anesthetic propofol.
But Branca says the way Jackson's musical legacy echoes through modern artists may be his most impressive legacy.
“Kanye West, Drake, Beyonce, Usher, Justin Timberlake, Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande - they all point back to Michael,” Branca said. “His influence is really enormous.”
Another suspect is in custody in connection with the gold heist at Toronto Pearson International Airport last year, police say.
A Conservative government led by Pierre Poilievre would not legislate on, nor use the notwithstanding clause, on abortion, his office says, as anti-abortion protesters gather on Parliament Hill.
For some immigrants, their dreams of permanently settling in Canada have taken an unexpected twist.
A southwestern Ontario woman has received an $8,400 bill from a hospital in Windsor, Ont., after she refused to put her mother in a nursing home she hated -- and she says she has no intention of paying it.
Studies have shown that ultraprocessed foods can have a detrimental impact on health. But 30 years of research show they don’t all have the same impact.
Miss Teen USA resigned Wednesday, sending further shock waves through the pageant community just days after Miss USA said she would relinquish her crown.
A video circulating on social media of a young girl being hit by a bike has some calling for better safety and more caution when designing bike lanes in the city. The video shows a four-year-old girl crossing Jeanne-Mance Street in Montreal's Plateau neighbourhood to get on a school bus stopped on the opposite side of the street
Adult film star Stormy Daniels took the stand for a second time Thursday as former U.S. president Donald Trump's hush money case continues in Manhattan.
Wildfire and emergency management officials in British Columbia are urging residents to be prepared for increased fire activity as temperatures are expected to soar above 30 C in parts of the province this weekend.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.