Last Thursday, along with 116 million other Americans, I viewed the first official trailer for Michael, Lionsgate’s $150 million Michael Jackson biopic-musical, directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Jackson’s nephew Jaafar in the title role. While others parsed the accuracy of Jaafar’s moonwalk, I had a different set of questions, starting with: Why is Jackson’s probate case still open 16 years after his death? Though the estate has become a commercial juggernaut—it has earned $3.5 billion since his death in 2009, according to Forbes’ 2025 list of “Highest Paid Dead Celebrities”—the legal machinery overseeing the entity has never actually wound down. Also: How exactly did executors John Branca and John McClain end up running a multibillion-dollar global brand out of a corner of the court system typically reserved for validating wills, settling debts, and parceling out leftovers?