No one knew how to grab and hold an audience like the King of Pop, and his masterclass for the 1993 Super Bowl Halftime Show is the stuff of legend. Now it’s getting the documentary treatment.
Hulu and ESPN said Tuesday that their new doc feature Spectacle: Michael Jackson at the Super Bowl will premiere in February on the respective streamer and cable channel.
Jackson was the world’s biggest star when he took the stage at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, and the moment was electric. Spectacle tells the backstory and chronicles the journey to and through his industry-shifting show, featuring never-before-seen footage of Jackson and his team, its legacy and how it catapulted the Super Bowl Halftime show into the single biggest spectacle in pop culture.
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The NFL’s title game was coming off a pair of big-name halftime headliners in New Kinds on the Block and Gloria Estefan in 1991 and 1992, but Fox played a counterprogramming card against Estefan’s show, airing an In Living Color special at halftime that swiped some 22 million viewers. The NFL hit back in 1993 with Jackson, whose performance began with him standing still for two full minutes, striking an aloof pose in a black suit crisscrossed by what look like gold bullet-belts.
He followed with songs including “Billie Jean,” “Black or White” and others including “We Are the World,” in which more than 3,000 local kids joined in. It marked the first time the second half of the Super Bowl had more viewers than the first and set the new normal of using the halftime show to attract and hold viewers.
Spectacle: Michael Jackson at the Super Bowl is a Skydance Sports production, in association with Optimum Productions and NFL Films. Bao Nguyen directs and produces the doc. Producers also include Jesse Sisgold, Jon Weinbach and Lauren Gaffney for Skydance Sports; John Branca for Optimum Productions; and Amit Dey for Into the Deep End Films. Executive producers are Karen Langford for Optimum Productions and Ross Ketover, Ken Rodgers, Keith Cossrow and Jessica Boddy for NFL Films.