Michael Jackson’s 1993 Super Bowl halftime show is getting its own documentary. Spectacle: Michael Jackson at the Super Bowl premieres in February 2027 on Hulu and ESPN, Hulu and ESPN announced October 13, with never-before-seen footage of Jackson and his team getting ready for the show.
Bao Nguyen directs and produces. He made The Greatest Night in Pop, the documentary about the all-night recording session behind We Are the World, which Jackson co-wrote.
The Halftime Show That Changed The Super Bowl
Jackson played Super Bowl XXVII at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on January 31, 1993. Before that night, halftime was mostly marching bands and acts past their peak. The league had tried bigger names with New Kids on the Block in 1991 and Gloria Estefan in 1992, but in 1992 Fox counterprogrammed the halftime show with a live In Living Color special that drew some 22 million viewers away from the game broadcast.
Jackson’s answer opened with him standing perfectly still on stage for nearly two minutes before he moved a muscle. He then launched into a set that included Jam, Billie Jean, Black or White, We Are the World and Heal the World, with more than 3,000 local kids joining him for We Are the World. It was the first time the second half of a Super Bowl drew more viewers than the first, and it made using halftime to attract and hold viewers the new normal.
The documentary follows how that show came together and how it turned halftime into what the film calls the single biggest spectacle in pop culture, the stage that later went to U2, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé and Bad Bunny.
Who Is Behind The Film
Spectacle is a Skydance Sports production made in association with Optimum Productions and NFL Films. It is produced by Jesse Sisgold, Jon Weinbach and Lauren Gaffney for Skydance Sports, John Branca for Optimum Productions and Amit Dey for Into the Deep End Films. Karen Langford of Optimum executive produces along with Ross Ketover, Ken Rodgers, Keith Cossrow and Jessica Boddy of NFL Films.
An exact premiere date has not been announced. The February window lines up with ESPN’s first Super Bowl, with Super Bowl LXI airing on ESPN and ABC on February 14 and streaming on Disney+ for every U.S. subscriber. It also arrives almost a year after Lionsgate’s biopic Michael, which starred Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson, became a box office hit.
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