Michael Barbaro

Wow.

Right.

They're kind of reputational value to the market.

It's genuinely hard to fathom that there could ever be a moment when Michael Jackson, looming as large as he does, could have a brand that was essentially worthless.

And what ends up being Branca's plan?

What is his idea for how to take this reputation that's in tatters and this debt that is mounting and somehow turn it around?

This is the moment.

This is it.

Wow.

Hmm.

Right.

In Death, Michael Jackson kind of severs himself and all the baggage around him from that beloved music.

Right.

Rather than the deep, dark secret that we all know to be the dominant story at his death, which is his relationship with the young boys.

So there's now a very clear playbook that the estate is using in this rehabilitation project, and it's telling the story about Michael Jackson and death that was not being told at the end of his life, that celebrates the music, and to a large degree, in the form of that musical, even the man in an uncomplicated and pretty sanitized way.

So, Mark, I think we've reached the leaving Neverland moment in this story.

That's the name of the documentary about Michael Jackson that comes out in 2019.

And I remember it really well because we did a daily episode about it and it was kind of a cultural phenomenon.

But just remind us why that documentary was so important and why it imperils this project.

Right, and in the face of these projects that the estate had blessed and promoted, from the concert to Cirque du Soleil and so on, it felt like a genuine cultural rebuttal to all of that that was breaking through.