{"id":414909,"date":"2026-04-28T13:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T13:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/414909\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T13:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T13:44:08","slug":"michael-smashes-uk-records-for-biggest-biopic-opening-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/414909\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael smashes UK records for biggest biopic opening | Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Michael, Antoine Fuqua\u2019s authorised <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/2026\/apr\/21\/michael-review-cliched-jackson-biopic-is-bland-bowdlerised-and-bad\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">biopic of Michael Jackson\u2019s life<\/a> until 1988, before allegations of child sexual assault began to emerge against the singer, has performed marginally less impressively in the UK than the US.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">In the US, Michael outperformed the opening for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/bohemian-rhapsody\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bohemian Rhapsody<\/a> \u2013 the highest grossing music biopic of all time, with which Michael shares a producer in Graham King \u2013 by 90%, taking $97m (\u00a372m) to its $51m (\u00a338m).<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">In the UK, however, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/michael\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Michael<\/a> took \u00a311.6m to Bohemian Rhapsody\u2019s \u00a36.4m \u2013 a ratio of 81%. It nonetheless represents a resounding success for the project and studio Universal, and accounted for 68% of all takings in the UK and Ireland over the three days from Friday to Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Other well-performing music biopics in the UK include Rocketman (\u00a34m), Elvis (\u00a34m) and A Complete Unknown (\u00a32.6m).<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Universal\u2019s animation <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/2026\/mar\/31\/the-super-mario-galaxy-movie-review-sequel-video-game-chris-pratt-charlie-day\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Super Mario Galaxy Movie<\/a> came in second place, for a rolling total of $46.5m (\u00a334.5m), while Sony\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/2026\/mar\/10\/project-hail-mary-review-ryan-goslings-charm-carries-unserious-last-ditch-space-mission\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Project Hail Mary <\/a>came third \u2013 its current UK total is $43.1m (\u00a331.2m).<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The Super Mario Galaxy Movie retains the crown for the biggest UK opening of 2026 so far, with \u00a315m, followed by Michael, and then <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/2026\/feb\/09\/wuthering-heights-review-emerald-fennell-margot-robbie-jacob-elordi\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wuthering Heights<\/a> and Project Hail Mary, each of which made around \u00a37m over their first three days.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The enormous global box office result for Michael ($217m [\u00a3161m] worldwide, with the film yet to open in the key territory of Japan) represents a remarkable result for Jackson\u2019s estate, and puts the film firmly on course to become the first music biopic to make more than $1bn (Bohemian Rhapsody took $900m [\u00a3668m]).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael, Antoine Fuqua\u2019s authorised biopic of Michael Jackson\u2019s life until 1988, before allegations of child sexual assault began&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":["post-414909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}