After two months in theaters, Lionsgate/Universal’s “Michael” now stands as the highest grossing biopic of all time with a $977.4 million box office, passing the $965 million record set three years ago by Christopher Nolan’s Best Picture Oscar winner “Oppenheimer.”
Antoine Fuqua’s film starring Jaafar Jackson as his famous King of Pop uncle was well on its way to breaking the record after earning a biopic record $217 million global opening weekend in late April, with Lionsgate handling domestic distribution for the film and Universal handling the release overseas.
In the weeks that followed, “Michael” remained a hot ticket for several weeks, striving alongside “The Devil Wears Prada 2” as fans of the late pop star showed up for repeat viewings. In the U.S., the film continued to post daily gross totals of more than $1 million until June 14, its 52nd day of theatrical play, and now stands with a domestic total of $370 million. That ranks third on Lionsgate’s all-time domestic charts behind only “The Hunger Games” ($408 million in 2012) and its sequel, “Catching Fire” ($424 million in 2013).
Meanwhile, “Michael” has proven that the global fanbase for the most famous pop star ever endures 17 years after his death, as the film has grossed nearly $600 million overseas including $70 million in the United Kingdom, $55 million-plus in France, and more than $30 million each in Mexico, Brazil and Australia. The film has also had a June release in Japan courtesy of Kino Films, where it is approaching $20 million.
Music biopics have become reliable moneymakers for studios, especially in recent years with films like “Elvis,” the N.W.A. biopic “Straight Outta Compton,” and the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown.” But before this year, the only music biopic to reach the box office stratosphere was “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which starred Rami Malek as Queen frontman Freddie Mercury and made $911 million worldwide.
As we have seen over the past two months, the only music star to command a global theatrical audience as big as Queen is MJ, as the film is now on the cusp of becoming the first biopic ever to gross $1 billion worldwide. Even if it runs out of gas in this theatrical run just short of that record, a re-release ahead of its planned sequel will get it over that mark.
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