Jaafar Jackson's Saturn Return Lands With the Sequel News
Lionsgate confirms Michael 2 is in active development as Jaafar Jackson enters his Saturn return — the chart pattern that makes him built for franchise weight.
Photo: Nicoleon / Wikimedia Commons (CC0) · Stock
By Sera Vane·May 30, 2026AI-assisted, editor-reviewed
Lionsgate Motion Picture Group Chair Adam Fogelson confirmed in May 2026 that Michael 2 is in active development — and roughly a quarter of the sequel is already shot, fast-tracking what is becoming one of the most aggressive biopic franchises Hollywood has greenlit this decade. The twenty-nine-year-old carrying the franchise, Jaafar Jackson, is in the heart of his Saturn return — the once-in-30-years passage, around age 29, when Saturn completes its first full orbit and forces a reckoning with everything you've built. The reason the orbit isn't done with him is structural, not coincidental: his Leo Sun sits in a tight applying trine to natal Saturn in Aries, and that fire-trine signature — the easy-flow angle between vitality and discipline — is precisely the chart that lets a young performer carry the weight of a billion-dollar franchise without buckling.
Transiting Pluto 5° Aquarius opposition natal Sun, orb 2.29°
Birth time
Noon fallback (no verified time)
Sources
Wikipedia, IMDb, Famous Birthdays
What Lionsgate Actually Confirmed
Lionsgate Motion Picture Group Chair Adam Fogelson, speaking in May 2026, confirmed that the sequel to the studio's biopic Michael is in active development — and disclosed something almost no studio admits this early: roughly 25 to 30 percent of the sequel was already shot during the original production. "We can go forwards and backwards in telling this story," Fogelson said, framing the sequel as something closer to a multi-installment continuation than a one-off follow-up. He added that "there are so many other events that happened, even in the time frame of the original movie, that weren't touched upon" — language that signals the franchise is scoping a multi-film life, not a single sequel. The first film, which opened April 24, 2026 with a reported $217M opening weekend, is tracking toward a billion-dollar global gross, per Deadline. That trajectory is the commercial fuel for the sequel's green-light.
Running on a separate but adjacent track, Netflix's three-part documentary Michael Jackson: The Verdict premieres June 3, 2026 — directed by Nick Green, produced by Candle True Stories, and focused entirely on the 2005 criminal trial rather than a narrative continuation of the biopic. The two properties expand the Jackson cultural moment in parallel; they aren't competing installments. For Jaafar, the practical effect is the same: the franchise architecture around him keeps widening, and the next eighteen months of his career are now anchored to a release calendar he didn't pick.
The Natal Chart Behind the Franchise
Start with the Sun. Jaafar's Leo Sun at 3° is the natal seed of public presence — Leo is the sign that performs, that holds a stage without flinching, that reads a crowd through skin temperature alone. His Mercury sits 15 degrees further into Leo, at 18°, which means even his thinking and his speaking voice are filtered through Leo's warmth and theatricality. That's not a chart that survives a role like this. It's a chart that was built for one. But Leo's appetite for visibility is also Leo's exposure — every minute of screen time is a minute the persona is being measured against the original, and there is no margin for shrinking back into anonymity once the franchise scales past the point where a private life is still possible.
The Moon tells a less obvious story. Jaafar's Moon sits at 28° Scorpio, in tight conjunction — the same-degree, same-sign placement that fuses two planetary energies into one signal — with natal Pluto in Sagittarius at 0°. That fusion gives him a private emotional life that runs at depth most twenty-nine-year-olds haven't located yet: instinctive about power dynamics, controlled in public, and almost certainly more guarded than the Leo Sun lets on. The cost of a Scorpio Moon-Pluto conjunction is that nothing stays small. Ordinary stress reads as existential; an ordinary press cycle can feel like a referendum on identity. Carrying a Jackson biopic is not an ordinary press cycle.
Then the structural piece — the Sun's applying trine to natal Saturn in Aries, the 120-degree fire-angle that astrology reads as discipline harmonizing with vitality rather than fighting it. This is the placement that turns talent into a body of work. People with a tight Sun-trine-Saturn build careers in long arcs and rarely flame out in the way Leo Suns without that ballast sometimes do. Pair it with the Sun opposite Uranus — a tight 180-degree pull that wires vitality against sudden change — and you get a chart that handles upheaval with structure intact. The franchise was always going to demand both. Jaafar's chart was always going to deliver both.
The Transit Picture — Saturn Returns and Pluto Pressures
The Saturn return is the centerpiece transit. Right now, transiting Saturn in Aries at 12° is closing in on Jaafar's natal Saturn at 7° Aries — within range and tightening. This is the once-per-30-years passage that arrives around age 29 and forces the audit: which commitments are mine, which were inherited, which are worth the weight. For a performer mid-franchise, that audit is not metaphorical. It is a literal renegotiation of contracts, identity, and what he agrees to carry for the next decade. The fire-trine to his Sun won't dilute the difficulty — it'll just make the difficulty productive rather than annihilating, building on our original chart analysis of the same Leo-Sun architecture.
Layered underneath that, transiting Pluto in Aquarius at 5° is opposing Jaafar's natal Leo Sun — well within range and tightening. Pluto oppositions to the natal Sun are the long, slow dismantling-and-rebuilding transits — five to seven years of pressure on the question of who you are when the costume comes off. Pluto doesn't soften. It just keeps applying weight until the parts of the identity that can't hold the weight come off voluntarily. For a Jackson biopic lead — playing a man whose entire late life was a contest between persona and self — the timing is almost too on-the-nose. It tracks.
Then the lift. Jupiter, currently moving through Cancer at 23°, makes its late-June ingress to Leo — the sign Jaafar's Sun sits in. By sign alignment, that puts Jupiter — astrology's expansion principle — sitting on top of his natal Sun's territory for the first time in twelve years. This isn't a subtle transit. Jupiter-to-Sun-by-sign tends to align with the visibility windows that compound: bigger projects, larger audiences, the years a career either scales or gets locked in to a higher tier. The sequel green-light is landing inside that window, not outside of it.
What This Means for the Franchise (and the Person Carrying It)
A Saturn return, a Pluto opposition to the natal Sun, and a Jupiter sign-ingress hitting the Sun by sign — three slow transits stacked simultaneously — is the astrological signature of a hinge year. Not a victory lap, not a collapse. A reckoning that compounds. The pattern that fits the news is not "the chart predicted the sequel." It's that the architecture of a chart with Sun-trine-Saturn, Mercury in Leo, and a Scorpio Moon-Pluto conjunction is precisely the architecture that holds up under three years of Pluto pressure and an increasingly demanding production schedule. Charts don't cause franchises. They describe who can survive carrying one.
The trade-off is sharp, though. A Scorpio Moon-Pluto conjunction in the middle of a Pluto-to-Sun opposition is not a recipe for emotional ease — Jaafar's private life is being squeezed at the same time his public life is being amplified. The franchise will scale faster than the person can. That is the structural complication earlier reads underweighted before the sequel news landed: the chart can hold the role, but it will demand a real cost in the years between now and Pluto's exit from the Sun's range later this decade. Anyone watching for a public crack-up is watching the wrong transit. Watch the years he goes quiet between releases. That's where Saturn returns actually happen.
The comparison set is small but pointed. Maisie Peters' Florescence-era chart shows what a Saturn-shaped career arc looks like at scale, while Sombr's 2026 AMA sweep reads the same kind of Leo-coded visibility window from a different generational cohort. Lil Wayne's recent Libra-stellium engagement sits as a contrasting case — a chart processing a different kind of transit entirely. Across all three, the through-line is the same: charts with Saturn working with the Sun, not against it, are the ones that translate moment into momentum. Jaafar's belongs in that company.
For entertainment and self-reflection purposes. Not predictive and not a substitute for professional advice.
What is Jaafar Jackson's zodiac sign?
Jaafar Jackson is a Leo, born July 25, 1996, with his Sun at 3° Leo. His Mercury also sits in Leo at 18°, doubling the sign's influence on how he speaks and presents publicly. Birth time is unverified, so this analysis covers sign placements and transits only.
Is Jaafar Jackson in his Saturn return right now?
Yes. Transiting Saturn at 12° Aries is currently closing toward his natal Saturn at 7° Aries, placing him squarely inside the Saturn return window around age 29. This is the once-in-30-years passage astrology associates with a structural audit of commitments, identity, and what someone agrees to carry forward.
What does a Saturn return mean for an actor mid-franchise?
It typically aligns with renegotiated contracts, deeper role commitment, and identity questions about which parts of the public persona are sustainable. For an actor mid-franchise, the return often coincides with the moment career architecture solidifies — or quietly fractures. Outcomes track preparation and structural support in the chart, not luck.
How long does a Pluto opposition to the natal Sun last?
Pluto's slow movement keeps an opposition to the natal Sun within range for roughly five to seven years total, with peak intensity lasting eighteen to twenty-four months. For Jaafar, the current tight aspect suggests compounding pressure through 2027 before Pluto eases beyond the Sun's range later this decade.
Is Netflix's Michael Jackson: The Verdict connected to the Lionsgate biopic?
No — they are separate, parallel projects. Netflix's three-part documentary, premiering June 3, 2026, covers the 2005 criminal trial. Lionsgate's narrative biopic and its confirmed sequel sit on a different production track. Both expand the Jackson cultural moment in May and June 2026 without overlapping creatively.
