Michael Barbaro

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From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro.

This is The Daily.

The record-shattering box office success of Michael.

The new biopic about Michael Jackson.

I'm genuinely appreciating Michael Jackson as a whole more than I thought I ever would.

And the outpouring of love for the late musician that the movie has unleashed was no accident.

Instead, it was the culmination of a painstaking, years-long effort to resurrect the reputation and profitability of the King of Pop, despite the multiple accusations of sexual abuse that have surrounded him for decades.

Today, Times Magazine writer Mark Benelli takes us inside the new playbook for rewriting the past.

Mark, welcome to The Daily.

Thanks for having me.

You are not a movie critic.

No.

And we're not really here to talk about the artistic merits of this movie about Michael Jackson, although just to say, critics have been pretty unkind to the movie overall, which has done nothing to dampen

ticket sales.

Your reporting has been focused on how the movie came to be and how it fits into a much larger project of Michael Jackson image repair.

Is that the way to think about it?