In what is easily the weirdest cast and film announcement to come along in many, many years, Joseph Fiennes is set to play Michael Jackson – yes, that one – in a film surrounding the aftermath of 9/11.
Read that sentence a few times, it will never fully register.
The report came out yesterday in The Guardian, and Fiennes as Michael Jackson is only the tip of the weirdness iceberg. The film tells a story, debatably true, about the King of Pop, Elizabeth Taylor, and Marlon Brando traveling in a car from New York to Ohio, trying to get home after the terrorist attacks on September 11. The original accounting of the trip was in Vanity Fair, and here is the summation in The Guardian article:
The story goes that Jackson invited the pair to his concert at Madison Square Garden. Following the 9/11 attacks, when air travel to and from New York was cancelled, the trio rented a car and began their quest back to California. “They actually got as far as Ohio – all three of them, in a car they drove themselves,” claimed a former employee of Jackson. Brando apparently insisted on stopping off at various fast food restaurants en route.
One issue with the validity of the story is the claim from one of Taylor’s assistants, who said Brando stayed behind to visit Ground Zero and pray in a church in New York. But let’s not let that little fact get in the way of what will certainly be a most bizarre film.
I suppose a bizarre story begets an equally bizarre casting choice for Michael Jackson. Joseph Fiennes may actually resemble the latter-years Jackson, but how incredibly awkward is that?! Stockard Channing will play Elizabeth Taylor, and Brian Cox will be Brando. Those make sense. And maybe Fiennes makes sense… it still makes me lightheaded.
