Taika Waititi is no longer involved with the Bubbles movie about the life of Michael Jackson.
The 43-year-old filmmaker has stepped away from plans to helm the animated film – which tells the late singer’s story through the eyes of his famous pet chimpanzee called Bubbles – due to his busy schedule, which includes the release of his latest film Jojo Rabbit.
According to Deadline, Taika walked away from the project while Netflix has also dropped the movie as they feel it’s ‘no longer a fit’ without him at the helm.
The streaming giant acquired rights to the film – which is from Isaac Adamson’s spec screenplay – at Cannes in 2017 for $20 million (£15 million).
Taika was set to co-direct the film with Mark Gustafson, who has since left to work with Guillermo del Toro on the reboot of Disney’s Pinocchio.
The Thor: Ragnarok director previously publically boasted that the script for the film was ‘brilliant’, however, he mentioned that he was focusing most of his attention on his upcoming comedy Jojo Rabbit.
He told the publication earlier this month: ‘That script has been around for a long time, and it’s a little bit stuck in the early stages of trying to figure out what it could be and what it would look like.
‘It’s a f***ing brilliant script, though. It’s so cool to look at the idea of telling a story like this through the eyes of a chimpanzee.
‘But right now I’m finishing two other features – one which I’m looking to do this year – and finishing Jojo [Rabbit], and there are a couple of TV shows I’m developing. There’s about two or three that I mentioned to the press, and they’re way back on my backburner.’
MJ, who has been at the centre of child sex allegations since the release of documentary Leaving Neverland, bought Bubbles in the early 80s and he lived at the Neverland Ranch where he reportedly slept in a crib in Jackson’s bedroom until 2003.
The synopsis read: ‘A baby chimp is adopted by the pop star Michael Jackson. Narrating his own story, Bubbles the Chimp details his life within The King of Pop’s inner circle through the scandals that later rocked in the singer’s life and eventually led to Bubbles’ release.’
Bubbles, who is now 36, lives at the Center for Great Apes Sanctuary in Florida after becoming ‘too aggressive for human family life’.
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