Unusually for such a successful performer, Michael Jackson seems to have harbored no ambition to become a movie star. Maybe making videos gave him more than he cared for of being in front of the camera; maybe they spoiled him for a working experience that would not be entirely under his control. Or maybe he learned from the example of fellow 80s superstar Madonna, whose desperation to be a movie star was evident in each increasingly ill-chosen film project she accepted.
Then again, maybe it was the troubled production and poor box office of The Wiz, Sidney Lumet’s 1978 adaptation of the Broadway hit that reset The Wizard of Oz into a soul milieu, that made him determined to wrest control of his musical career. (The film was where he met producer Quincy Jones.)
Jackson did make two non-musical appearances in films that you’re not likely to see in any of the obituaries that will consume the world media this weekend. The first was an amusing cameo in the generally woeful Men in Black II:

The second, unfortunately, was in Miss Cast Away & The Island Girls (2005), which may well rank at the bottom of the barrel of lousy spoof movies that have proliferated in the wake of Scary Movie. Jackson apparently was a friend of director Bryan Michael Stoller, and let him shoot the movie on his Neverland Ranch. The movie does all it can to capitalize on Jackson’s brief appearance, and the DVD features a “Making of” short that may stand as the singer’s final filmed appearance. (Thanks to Ed of MediaFunhouse for uncovering this.)