Michael Biopic Uses CGI to Portray Bubbles
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- Director Antoine Fuqua used CGI to portray Bubbles the chimp — along with Jackson's llama, giraffe, and python — in the new biopic "Michael," rather than using real animals on set.
- Lionsgate said in a statement to Variety that the portrayal of Bubbles as a pet is "based on historical fact and is not intended to be an endorsement of keeping chimpanzees as pets," noting Bubbles has lived at the Center for Great Apes sanctuary for more than 20 years.
- PETA praised Lionsgate's decision not to use real animals and urged audiences to "never buy primates from breeders or keep them as pets," per the organization's director of animals in film and television Lauren Thomasson.
- Michael Jackson rescued Bubbles from a Texas research facility in the 1980s and brought the chimp on tour, to his lawyer John Branca's wedding, and to meet government officials in Japan in 1987.
- Bubbles now weighs about 170 pounds and has lived at the Center for Great Apes in Wauchula, Fla., since 2005, where he shares a group with a 52-year-old chimp named Oopsy and is being introduced to new youngsters.
- Patti Ragan, founding director of the Center for Great Apes, said Jackson was planning to visit Bubbles at the time of his 2009 death, and the Jackson estate continues to financially support Bubbles' care.
- A standalone Bubbles biopic based on a script by Isaac Adamson is being pitched in Hollywood, though no sequel to "Michael" has been announced.
Why it matters: Lionsgate coordinated with PETA to use CGI for all of Jackson's animal companions in the new biopic, and explicitly stated the portrayal of Bubbles as a pet is not an endorsement of the practice. The real Bubbles, 43 and 170 pounds, has been at a Florida sanctuary since 2005 with the Jackson estate still footing his care bill.
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