{"id":552027,"date":"2026-04-26T17:57:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T17:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/552027\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T17:57:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T17:57:12","slug":"bad-movies-good-business-how-sanitised-biopics-became-a-hollywood-staple-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/552027\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad movies, good business: how sanitised biopics became a Hollywood staple | Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month, Ryan Gosling addressed an audience about to see his new movie. \u201cIt\u2019s not your job to keep cinemas open,\u201d he told them<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s our job to make things that make it worth you coming out. This movie\u2019s for you. Enjoy the trip!\u201d<\/p>\n

Small wonder they applauded. This is a strategy radically different to that adopted in the immediate aftermath of the Covid crisis, when studios believed the best way to get people to leave their homes and buy cinema tickets was to hector them to do so.<\/p>\n

It proved a nasty error of judgment. Audiences voted with their feet, by putting on their slippers and turning on Netflix. Blockbusters bombed, and 40% of screens in the US closed.<\/p>\n

A rear-view mirror problem \u2013 the advent of streaming \u2013 was suddenly in close-up. And the picture has remained critical ever since. Projections suggest that the box office might bounce back to pre-pandemic levels in 2030 \u2013 pending further disasters.<\/p>\n

As for Gosling, he first adopted the tactic of flattering consumers \u2013 and taking responsibility for the future of his own industry \u2013 in the summer of 2023. Then, he was promoting Barbie, which made $1.4bn (\u00a31.2bn) and became the highest-grossing film of that year. The highest-grossing opening of 2026 so far is Gosling\u2019s new movie, Project Hail Mary, which took $141m over its first weekend, for a rolling total of $577m.<\/p>\n

Yet Mary is now almost certain to be usurped by Michael, Antoine Fuqua\u2019s biopic of Michael Jackson<\/a>. The two films \u2013 and, indeed, Barbie \u2013 share some key DNA. Their sell relies on the idea they have been made for that nebulous entity, the fans \u2013 rather than, say, cineastes, and much less the critics. Going to see them is a treat. An event, even. So enjoy! And for God\u2019s sake, don\u2019t overthink it.<\/p>\n

Antoine Fuqua, director of Michael, the most expensive music biopic ever made at about $200m. Photograph: John MacDougall\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Michael is currently tracking to take $165m over its first three days. Less than half of that would come from the US, yet it\u2019s still likely to secure the highest ever domestic opening for a music biopic, beating both Straight Outta Compton ($60m) and Bohemian Rhapsody ($51m). Michael shares a producer, Graham King, with the Freddie Mercury film, which wound up taking $911m, making it the biggest music biopic ever by a margin of more than $600m.<\/p>\n

Michael is also \u2013 just to spin those box office records a little longer \u2013 the most expensive music biopic ever made, with a final budget of about $200m. Around $50m of that funded reshoots required after the producers realised a legal settlement with one of the men who had accused the singer of sexual assault meant they had to throw out the entire third act.<\/p>\n

The original cut of the film dramatised the impact on Jackson of these allegations, which have since been spoken about with scepticism by Fuqua, who said \u201csometimes people do some nasty things for some money\u201d. The movie similarly avoids the other allegations that have since emerged against Jackson, by opting to bring down the curtain in 1988.<\/p>\n

All of that goes some way to explaining the dire slate of reviews posted for Michael upon its release: \u201cA frustratingly shallow, inert picture,\u201d wrote Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian<\/a>; \u201cinsulting both to audience and subject\u201d, wrote Alissa Wilkinson in the New York Times<\/a>. There were many other pans besides.<\/p>\n

But will any of that matter to audiences?<\/p>\n

Given what else those buying tickets for Michael are choosing to ignore, a withering critic seems unlikely to give them pause.<\/p>\n

Michael is not just a watershed moment for the music biopic. Its likely fate \u2013 many predict a final take above $1bn \u2013 appears to give proof to some striking new realities about the current state of the industry. The key takeaway seems to be that when it comes to objectivity, integrity and veracity, audiences will always prioritise the chance to have a singsong.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fans want to go see somebody dance and hear the greatest hits and they don\u2019t really give a damn whether or not the story resembles reality in any way,\u201d says Steven Gaydos, a former executive editor of Variety.<\/p>\n

The director Kevin Macdonald \u2013 whose career has mixed both documentary (the Oscar-winning One Day in September, plus films about Whitney Houston, Mick Jagger, Bob Marley and John Lennon) and fiction (State of Play, Black Sea) \u2013 agrees. \u201cAudiences don\u2019t seem to care [about truth],\u201d he says. \u201cMany of these films are pure fan service. Which is fine as far as it goes. Maybe we were all naive for believing that popular artists were worth looking at seriously, critically?\u201d<\/p>\n

The recreation of Live Aid in the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. Photograph: Twentieth Century Fox\/New Regency Pictures\/Allstar<\/p>\n

The broader the brushstrokes, he thinks, the more coshing the cliches and obvious the needle drops, the bigger the impact. \u201cThe audience for these films knows what they\u2019ll get \u2013 and no matter how bland the telling is, the music will be reliably great.\u201d He puts the success of Bohemian Rhapsody down to its recreation of the last 10 minutes of Live Aid.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was rapturous and utterly immersive \u2013 in a way I don\u2019t remember the original performance on TV being. Ironically, cinemas are being kept open by the fact that music sounds so great in surround sound and Dolby Atmos.\u201d<\/p>\n

This truism helps explain why the music biopic is stuck in such a compromising loop. If what people want is a basic jukebox experience echoing stage shows such as MJ: the Musical ($319m in five years), the major concern for the producers is access to the hits. Without those \u2013 as Andre 3000\u2019s Jimi Hendrix film ($600,000) and Johnny Flynn\u2019s David Bowie biopic ($62,000) testify, not to mention the legendarily dreadful 2004 Michael Jackson biopic Man in the Mirror (debuted on VH1) \u2013 you might as well not bother.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

These rights come at a cost, however. Whoever controls the songs also controls the story. Audiences appear fine with the trade-off. But what about the directors? \u201cEven the most celebrated film-makers in Hollywood seem perfectly fine with doing authorised biographies,\u201d says Gaydos. \u201cOnce you sign on with the family or the star themselves, you\u2019re getting their version of reality. So they\u2019re often just egregiously false.\u201d<\/p>\n

He points to a precursor in Martin Scorsese\u2019s acclaimed Bob Dylan documentaries, in which the musician is most often quizzed not by Scorsese, but by his own lawyer, Jeff Rosen. The same Jeff Rosen served as a producer on A Complete Unknown, the recent Dylan biopic starring Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet.<\/p>\n

Not that Dylan necessarily needed his oversight. \u201cBob read every line of that script,\u201d says Gaydos. \u201cThe movie is 100% the Bob Dylan view of the Bob Dylan story. And artistically I think it suffers tremendously as a result.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commercially, however, the film was a hit: $141m at the box office, plus a lucrative-for-the-future introduction of Gen Z to the now 84-year-old Dylan. Its success led to the greenlighting of Bruce Springsteen biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere, which was also made with the close involvement of its subject.<\/p>\n

But the algorithm isn\u2019t infallible. Despite the heat of star Jeremy Allen White and a big promotional push by the Boss himself, the movie \u2013 which majored on the recording of the 1982 album Nebraska in Springsteen\u2019s bedroom \u2013 made just $45m ($10m less than its production budget).<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think the Springsteen movie failed because it was a whitewash,\u201d says Gaydos. \u201cIt failed because it was a giant bore. Nobody seems to care that [A Complete Unknown\u2019s] James Mangold or Martin Scorsese signed on to do movies that are basically authorised by the guy they\u2019re making the movie about. But I think that\u2019s a deadly trend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeremy Allen White and Bruce Springsteen promoting Springsteen\u2019s biopic, which made $10m less than its production budget. Photograph: Dave Benett\/Getty Images for Spotify<\/p>\n

While broadcasters such as the BBC would not currently tolerate estate control, says Macdonald, the readiness of streamers to do so means the future looks bleak. \u201cMost of those celebrity documentary films and series don\u2019t require any kind of detachment. Estates and living celebrities are happy to take producer credits on films about themselves. It\u2019s no secret. The whole idea that an artist should be looked at journalistically has gone the way of Top of the Pops.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plus, the spending power of such estates gives them leverage most film-makers can never match. \u201cThe saddest example of this was Ezra Edelman\u2019s series about Prince, which he spent years working on, only for the estate to close it down<\/a> because it portrayed Prince in a way that they felt was detrimental to their business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macdonald himself made a series about Oprah Winfrey a few years ago, over which he and his producer had the final cut. \u201cBut Oprah decided she didn\u2019t like the depiction and bought the entire film from the streamer who financed it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a full century, biopics were a byword for melodramatic trash. The first one, about Joan of Arc, appeared in 1900<\/a>; the following 10 decades were littered with lurid and ludicrous compressions of celebrity lives \u2013 as well as a few good ones.<\/p>\n

Still, the consensus in Hollywood and beyond was that the genre was a bit of a joke. That it would clearly be disingenuous to presume an accurate account could be squeezed into two hours. Anything thorny would be first to be pruned.<\/p>\n

It took 100 years for a groundswell of film-makers to twig that inclusion of prickly incidents, the scattering of grit in the mix, might make for a movie that was both a crowdpleaser and credible.<\/p>\n

In 2004, Jamie Foxx\u2019s technically impeccable and emotionally complicated portrayal of Ray Charles<\/a> won him the Academy Award for best actor. A year later, for Walk The Line<\/a>, Reese Witherspoon\u2019s June Carter Cash won best actress (though Joaquin Phoenix\u2019s Johnny lost out to Philip Seymour Hoffman\u2019s Truman Capote).<\/p>\n

Between 2000 to 2019, 55% of leading actor and actress Oscars went to performances in a biopic. Over the past four years, the genre has been responsible for 63 Oscar nominations. Yet at the same time, hagiography has resurfaced as a pre-requisite for success.<\/p>\n

Baz Luhrmann\u2019s authorised Elvis (2022)<\/a>, which boasted endless bangers, made a villain out of Presley\u2019s manager and was praised by his family, made $287m and scored eight Oscar nominations. Sofia Coppola\u2019s unauthorised Priscilla (2023)<\/a> however, which tarred Elvis, was disowned by his family and soundtracked by Coppola\u2019s husband, received zero Oscar nominations and made $33m.<\/p>\n

Baz Luhrmann\u2019s Elvis biopic received eight Oscar nominations. Photograph: TCD\/Prod.DB\/Alamy<\/p>\n

At the same time, an industry already beleaguered by streamers and laid low by Covid faced new challenges. Superhero interest plateaued. While once the brand recognition of a Marvel movie translated into guaranteed profits, Hollywood can no longer rely on lycra.<\/p>\n

Live music has superseded those films as the boom economy of the age. And as concert films such as James Cameron\u2019s forthcoming Billie Eilish 3D extravaganza, plus the megahit ($262m) movie version of Taylor Swift\u2019s Eras tour prove, the film industry is only too eager to leech off the music business. Event cinema is essential, even if the event has little to do with cinema.<\/p>\n

The saturation of social media, meanwhile, has meant everyday interest in the lives of celebrities has only got more intense, intimate and easy to manipulate. While one might have supposed the advent of the internet could render biopics redundant \u2013 if facts and archive footage are readily accessible, why bother making stuff up? \u2013 in reality, being constantly supplied with new information about celebrities has only fuelled investment in them. Simultaneously, Instagram, TikTok and X have further acclimatised people to the idea that it\u2019s de rigueur for pop stars to completely curate their own image \u2013 and to mercilessly monetise it.<\/p>\n

For an industry over a barrel, it is not an option to ignore any flotsam and jetsam that might turn out to be a life raft. \u201cBiopics are just another variation on IP mining,\u201d says Gaydos. And right now studios are ravenous for \u201canything that has a pre-sold quality to it \u2013 or, I would argue, pre-masticated\u201d.<\/p>\n

Films depicting the heady breakthroughs of music icons also boast a baked-in nostalgia \u2013 a comfort factor ever more appealing for audiences seeking to escape the news. \u201cPeople just love basking in the memories of being 18,\u201d says Gaydos. \u201cAnd Hollywood has got really good at mining that desire to go back to your youth and remember what you wore and who you kissed. It\u2019s not artistically very interesting or sound, but boy is it good business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which brings us to Sam Mendes\u2019s four Beatles movies, the first fictional depictions of the band to include the rights to use their songs. Both Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney are heavily involved in production, a complicity offset by the fact each instalment allows for a different man\u2019s perspective. Accusations of whitewash and bias can be headed off well in advance.<\/p>\n

Splitting the story in such a way also means overall takings will either be diluted \u2013 or multiplied. Which is hard to gauge at this stage, although what happens this weekend will offer some pointers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not a human being on earth that doesn\u2019t know who Michael Jackson was,\u201d says Gaydos, \u201cand the same is true of the Beatles. If a film can promise to put 14 of their songs on the soundtrack, you\u2019ve got a licence to print money.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last month, Ryan Gosling addressed an audience about to see his new movie. \u201cIt\u2019s not your job to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-552027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}