It’s fair to say that the critical response to Michael Jackson biopic ‘Michael’ was… mixed. But the bums-on-seats response from fans in cinemas has surpassed all expectations.
The film has just become the first biopic to reach the milestone of $1bn of box-office takings, with $371.8m grossed in the US and $629.8m around the world.
This isn’t just a biopic milestone. Variety noted that it’s the biggest-ever film for studio Lionsgate, beating 2013’s ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’ which grossed $865m.
As has become very clear in recent months, the impact of ‘Michael’ stretches beyond big box-office numbers. It has also sharply spiked streams of Jackson’s catalogue.
He is currently the fifth most-streamed artist on Spotify, with 104.7 million monthly listeners. ‘Billie Jean’ is fourth in Spotify’s ‘Top Songs – Global’ chart with 28.1m weekly streams, meanwhile.
Jackson is also holding eighth spot in YouTube’s artists chart with 175.6m views of his music in the week of 3-9 July, and 700m total views in the last month.
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