{"id":525669,"date":"2026-07-14T13:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T13:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/525669\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T13:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T13:44:09","slug":"michael-is-first-biopic-to-hit-1bn-box-office-milestone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/525669\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Michael\u2019 is first biopic to hit $1bn box-office milestone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s fair to say that the critical response to Michael Jackson biopic \u2018Michael\u2019 was\u2026 mixed. But the bums-on-seats response from fans in cinemas has surpassed all expectations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This isn\u2019t just a biopic milestone. Variety\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2026\/film\/box-office\/michael-billion-dollar-box-office-benchmark-biopic-record-1236802496\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">noted<\/a>\u00a0that it\u2019s the biggest-ever film for studio Lionsgate, beating 2013\u2019s \u2018The Hunger Games: Catching Fire\u2019 which grossed $865m.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As has become very clear in recent months, the impact of \u2018Michael\u2019 stretches beyond big box-office numbers. It has also sharply spiked streams of Jackson\u2019s catalogue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He is currently\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/artist\/3fMbdgg4jU18AjLCKBhRSm?si=gcG2Sg34TW6idAxsGD9cNg&amp;nd=1&amp;dlsi=9442760c741a4b90\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">the fifth most-streamed artist on Spotify<\/a>, with 104.7 million monthly listeners. \u2018Billie Jean\u2019 is fourth in Spotify\u2019s \u2018Top Songs \u2013\u00a0Global\u2019 chart with 28.1m weekly streams, meanwhile.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jackson is also holding eighth spot in YouTube\u2019s artists chart with 175.6m views of his music in the week of 3-9 July, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/charts.youtube.com\/artist\/%2Fm%2F09889g?date_end=2026-07-14T00%3A00%3A00Z\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">700m total views in the last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Related Stories\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s fair to say that the critical response to Michael Jackson biopic \u2018Michael\u2019 was\u2026 mixed. But the bums-on-seats&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,6455,9088,157,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-525669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-michael-jackson","tag-milestones","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}