Get the latest gossip

Hollywood Flashback: In 1987, Martin Scorsese and Michael Jackson Made a Thrilling Duo

The King of Pop hired the director, set to be honored Feb. 25 with the PGA’s David O. Selznick Award, to make a short film for “Bad.”

Released five years after Thriller helped establish the singer as the King of Pop, Bad made history with five singles topping the Billboard Hot 100 — but only one of them, the title track, featured an 18-minute music video directed by Martin Scorsese. With a script from Richard Price, who penned Scorsese’s 1986 feature The Color of Money, the video for “Bad” was a narrative short film focusing on Darryl (Jackson), a fleet-footed prep school student pulled back into a life of crime when he reconnects with his neighborhood friends. Following Jackson’s death in June 2009, the filmmaker — who is Oscar-nominated for best picture and director for Killers of the Flower Moon and set to receive the PGA’s David O. Selznick lifetime achievement award Feb. 25 — remarked: “When we worked together on ‘Bad,’ I was in awe of his absolute mastery of movement on the one hand and of the music on the other.”

Get the Android app