Jaafar Jackson made his motion picture debut earlier this year as his late uncle, Michael Jackson, in the $1 billion blockbuster Michael, and now he’s landed his next major role.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, Jackson will star opposite Will Smith in the upcoming David Gordon Green-directed action thriller Supermax. The cast also includes AnnaSophia Robb, who, alongside Smith, will portray an FBI agent investigating a murder inside a maximum security prison. Supermax, which is coming from Miramax and Amazon MGM Studios, marks Jackson’s second film following his acclaimed performance in the family-sanctioned biopic about his uncle, the King of Pop.
Written by David Weil and David J. Rosen, the movie is expected to start production soon. After Supermax, he’s expected to reprise his role as Michael Jackson in a sequel to Michael, which followed the pop star’s career from 1966 to 1988 and ended with an ending card that read, “His story continues.”
Prior to his career as an actor, the 30-year-old son of Jermaine Jackson released a number of songs under his own name, including his 2019 debut track, “Got Me Singing.” He’s since pivoted to acting after he was cast in the Antoine Fuqua-directed Michael in 2013, which now holds the honor of being the highest-grossing biopic of all-time. It’s currently the second-highest grossing movie of 2026 behind Toy Story 5, but the insane opening weekend of Spider-Man: Brand New Day means it’s likely to drop down the list soon. The Odyssey, which has so far grossed $911 million worldwide, is also still playing in theaters.
As reported by Deadline in May, Lionsgate confirmed that a sequel to Michael was on the way.
“All the conversations that we’ve been having with all of the appropriate parties continue to go exceptionally well, and I would say that there is a ton of incredibly entertaining Michael Jackson story, and much of the biggest and most popular parts of his music catalog that were not touched upon in the first film,” said Lionsgate Studios Motion Picture Chair Adam Fogelson. “We’re very, very confident that we’ve got an incredibly entertaining movie that will appeal once again to a global audience as the pieces come together.”
