There was nothing small about Michael Jackson’s long-awaited follow-up to his 1982 smash Thriller, the best-selling album of all time. 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. Playing gang leader Mini Max was a then-unknown Wesley Snipes, who had recently graduated from the theater program at SUNY Purchase.
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Snipes recalls Jackson being a bit misinformed about his background and tells The Hollywood Reporter with a laugh, “MJ thought I was a real gang member they hired from off the streets and encouraged me to pursue acting as a real career.” Initial confusion aside, Snipes describes the shoot as an “incredible experience” and remembers Scorsese as soft-spoken and not inclined to give much direction, but that he encouraged Snipes to “approach rehearsals like my one shot and only performance.”
The project debuted as part of CBS’ primetime special Michael Jackson … The Magic Returns on Aug. 31, 1987, the same day of the album’s release, although THR’s review dismissed the “Bad” video as “hackneyed/creatively bankrupt.”
But the experience certainly made an impact on Scorsese. 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.”
As for Snipes, he quips about Scorsese, “He’s a much better director than dancer.”
This story first appeared in the Feb. 21 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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