You’ve likely seen the TV movie about the rise of the Jackson 5, now the end of Michael Jackson’s legendary life is getting the TV treatment, too. J.J. Abrams’s Bad Robot production company is teaming with PBS host Tavis Smiley and Warner Bros. Television to turn Smiley’s new book, Before You Judge Me: The Triumph and Tragedy of Michael Jackson’s Last Days, into a TV event series. The show doesn’t have a network attached yet, but the book about Jackson’s final months is set to be released tomorrow. It’ll “examine the soaring highs and deep lows faced by the late pop star — his constant hunt for privacy in a life that was more public than almost any other, and the pressures he endured as someone whose fame made him socially fragile and almost unable to live.” Smiley and Abrams are already adapting another of Smiley’s books, Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Final Year, into a TV series. Here’s hoping no one casts a white guy as MJ this time!
