In a response filed in federal court on Thursday, lawyers for HBO called the estate’s petition a “poorly disguised and legally barred posthumous defamation claim.” They added that the film was protected by the First Amendment and that the 1992 contract had long since expired.

HBO’s lawyers, Daniel M. Petrocelli and Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., added that the estate’s suit “appears to be part of a transparent effort to bolster their publicity campaign against the documentary.” They asked the judge, George H. Wu of United States District Court in Los Angeles, to deny the request for arbitration.

The Jackson estate has complained vociferously that it was given no opportunity to respond to the film’s accusations, and sounded that note again on Friday. “HBO’s opposition clearly shows that they are afraid to have this matter adjudicated because it will expose the falsity of the documentary,” Bryan J. Freedman, a lawyer for the estate, said in a statement.

The estate was hundreds of millions of dollars in debt at the time of Mr. Jackson’s death in 2009. Since then, it has transformed itself into a billion-dollar business, through the sales of Mr. Jackson’s stakes in valuable song catalogs, as well as through a string of commercial deals, including a musical on Broadway, “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough,” expected next year.

That musical has already drawn questions about how its esteemed creative team, the playwright Lynn Nottage and the choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, would deal with allegations of abuse involving Mr. Jackson. The issue was made murkier when the two told The New York Times last month that the two accusers in the film, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, “came across as very believable,” as Ms. Nottage put it. Both she and Mr. Wheeldon said they did not see themselves as “judge and jury,” about Mr. Jackson.