Director of ‘Michael’ movie has HBCU ties

The new biopic on Michael Jackson’s early career, titled Michael, is set to hit theaters this weekend. The biopic is expected to draw large crowds in anticipation of the King of Pop’s return to the big screen.

The film was directed by a former HBCU basketball player with an extensive resume in Hollywood. Michael director Antoine Fuqua is a well-known name amongst cinema fans, as he’s directed classics such as Training Day and the Equalizer series, among other blockbuster films.

But before his time as a director, he attended West Virginia State University, an HBCU in Institute, West Virginia. Fuqua received a basketball scholarship and played for the team until he eventually transferred to West Virginia University. While in college, he played point guard and studied electrical engineering.

After his college journey, he moved to New York to pursue his passion for filmmaking and used his rent money to produce a short film called Exit. The film Exit was a perfect entry for Fuqua into the film industry, as it catapulted his career from music videos to big-budget films.

Now, he brings his vision for Michael Jackson’s early life to the big screen for a movie that will earn massive acclaim and is already being heralded as the movie of the year. In an interview with the Motion Picture Association, he spoke about the movie and Jaafar Jackson’s performance.

“This is Michael Jackson. You’ve got to put the cape on the superhero to see if he can be a superhero, and Jaafar pulled it off. I was shooting that scene for a few days, so he had to do it over and over at the same level, every time, from every angle. At that point, Michael had such veracity and energy, and we had to capture that.”

Michael opens in theaters on Friday.

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