{"id":633279,"date":"2026-04-27T03:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T03:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/633279\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T03:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T03:28:12","slug":"michael-moonwalks-to-217m-opening-weekend-shattering-box-office-records-for-a-biopic-michael-jackson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/633279\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael moonwalks to $217m opening weekend, shattering box office records for a biopic | Michael Jackson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael<\/a>, the big-budget Michael Jackson biopic, has shrugged off bad reviews and a troubled production to launch with a $97m opening in North American theaters, contributing to its enormous $217m (\u00a3160m, A$303m) worldwide box office and shattering the record for the biggest biopic opening of all time.<\/p>\n

The film, a highly authorised portrayal of the \u201cking of pop\u201d that was co-produced by the Jackson estate and stars Jackson\u2019s nephew Jaafar Jackson, took $120.4m internationally and $97m domestic \u2013 combining to surpass Oppenheimer\u2019s $180.4m worldwide opening weekend in 2023 and Bohemian Rhapsody\u2019s $124m in 2018.<\/p>\n

The film has now opened in most of the world \u2013 one notable exception being Japan, home to a huge Jackson fanbase, where it will open in June.<\/p>\n

Michael\u2019s $97m domestic debut also surpassed records set by previous biopics in North America<\/a>, including Oppenheimer ($82m in 2023), Straight Outta Compton ($60.2m in 2015) and Bohemian Rhapsody ($51m in 2018).<\/p>\n

Critics have criticised Michael for glossing over some of the less convenient aspects of Jackson\u2019s life but audiences have been far more enthusiastic: on Rotten Tomatoes its critics score is 38%, compared with 97% from audiences<\/a>. A few weeks back, estimates for Michael\u2019s North American opening weekend were closer to $50m but this rose to $70m \u2013 which it wildly overperformed.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the beginning, all of the signals were that something like this was possible,\u201d the Lionsgate chairman, Adam Fogelson, told Associated Press. \u201cWe were seeing massive engagement with every conceivable audience segment that you could identify.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even in the lucrative market of music biopics, Michael<\/a> was an audacious bet by Lionsgate on a controversial figure. The reputation of Jackson, who died in 2009 at the age of 50, has been repeatedly tarnished by allegations of sexual abuse of children. Jackson and his estate have maintained his innocence, though the pop star acknowledged sharing a bedroom with other people\u2019s children. He was acquitted in his sole criminal trial in 2005.<\/p>\n

Some Jackson family members opposed the film: his sister Janet Jackson was uninvolved and doesn\u2019t appear in it, while Jackson\u2019s daughter, Paris, called it \u201cfantasy land\u201d.<\/p>\n

The film also had an unusually rocky production. After shooting was completed, producers realised they had made a costly mistake. The third act focused on the accusations of Jordan Chandler, then 13 years old, whom Jackson paid $23m to in a 1994 settlement. The terms of that settlement barred the Jackson estate from ever mentioning Chandler in a movie.<\/p>\n

A huge chunk of the film was cut and reshoots for as much as $50m were done at the estate\u2019s expense. Director Antoine Fuqua and screenwriter John Logan reworked the movie to conclude in 1988, before any accusations were made.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would take issue with the idea that we as a studio or as film-makers were running around in a panic,\u201d Fogelson told AP on Sunday, labelling it \u201ca unique and challenging circumstance\u201d instead.<\/p>\n

Yet as bad as things once looked for Michael, the movie turned into a huge hit. The film\u2019s total production cost came close to $200m. To defray costs, Lionsgate sold international distribution rights to Universal. A sequel is in development. A third film after that, Fogelson said, is \u201cnot inconceivable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Director Antoine Fuqua has said he would like to direct the sequel, telling Deadline on Sunday<\/a>: \u201cIt would kill me if somebody else did it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cut footage could be repurposed as the shoots went \u201cpretty far\u201d, Fuqua added: \u201cWe went through the Jordan allegations we couldn\u2019t use. We went farther than that. Maybe a year or two after that (1995) when things turned against Michael.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plans for Michael were first announced in 2012, three years after the release of Leaving Neverland, the 2019 documentary about Jackson\u2019s alleged sexual abuse of children. The Leaving Neverland director, Dan Reed, recently told<\/a> the Guardian: \u201cIt kind of fills me with horror, the degree to which everyone can turn a blind eye to the fact that this guy was a bit of a monster.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bohemian Rhapsody, the Queen biopic, remains the highest-grossing music biopic of all time after taking $910m at the global box office, while Oppenheimer holds the record for overall biopic <\/a>with $975m.<\/p>\n

Associated Press contributed to this report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael, the big-budget Michael Jackson biopic, has shrugged off bad reviews and a troubled production to launch with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136],"class_list":["post-633279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}