Golden Globes Deny 'Michael' a Musical Slot, Sending It to Drama
Variety confirmed that Lionsgate's bid to have its Michael Jackson biopic compete as a comedy or musical at the Golden Globes has been denied. The Globes rulebook allows a musical to be a comedy or a drama in which songs are used alongside spoken dialogue to further the plot. By that standard, the organization evidently read the film's performance sequences as re-creations of Michael Jackson's performances rather than as integral storytelling devices.
So the film is currently slated for the drama categories, where it competes for one of six slots against films including Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey and La Bola Negra.
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The rule sounds clean until you apply it to a film that stages the performances themselves: songs must further the plot, but a film whose big numbers are re-creations of real performances is asking the classification to referee something it was never built to referee.
Or the standard is doing exactly the job it was written for: if the numbers are re-creations rather than plot, drama is the honest placement. An appeal is still technically open before the Oct. 31 deadline, though sources tell Variety it likely won't be pursued — which reads like a studio that has already accepted the answer.