Nia Long reportedly fighting Lionsgate over lower Michael salary than male costars

It’s unclear whether the various changes that were made to the film for legal reasons have anything to do with the pay discrepancy, but Belloni reports that a decent portion of Long’s scenes as family matriarch Katherine Jackson were cut from the final product, including a fairly major moment that presumably occurred after 1988. (Belloni says that he read an original draft of the script, which is how he reported last year that the original third act of the film was going to try to convince audiences that Michael was the victim of a false smear campaign.) However, it was reported last week that the cuts and reshoots ended up significantly boosting the salary of director Antoine Fuqua and Graham King. Again, there’s no reason to think these things are directly related at this point, but if the reports of Long’s salary are true, it’s certainly a bad look for a project that’s already had plenty of them.