{"id":602418,"date":"2026-04-23T22:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T22:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/602418\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T22:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T22:22:10","slug":"michael-18-5m-overseas-best-first-day-musical-biopic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/602418\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Michael’ $18.5M Overseas, Best First Day Musical Biopic"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tUniversal<\/a>\u2018s international release of Lionsgate<\/a>\u2018s Michael<\/a> Jackson biopic, Michael, opened in most of its 82 markets Wednesday with an $18.5M first day (which includes Tuesday previews). Back out those previews, and Wednesday alone was $16.6M.<\/p>\n

\n\tChina goes Friday, and India, Bolivia and Pakistan open Thursday in what is an overall foreign play in 23,230 locations and 50,529 screens.<\/p>\n

\n\tBiggest results came from both France and UK Ireland on Wednesday, which respectively minted $2.6M.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: The 60 Movies That Have Made More Than $1 Billion At The Global Box Office<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tMichael is at 743 screens in France and charted the biggest opening day for a biopic ever, coming in well above the Wednesday openings of both\u00a0Oppenheimer\u00a0and\u00a0Bohemian Rhapsody.\u00a0The pic was the No. 1 rank, capturing a strong 41% of admissions.<\/p>\n

\n\tUK & Ireland also saw the biggest opening day for a musical biopic of all time, ahead of the Wednesday opening of\u00a0Bohemian Rhapsody\u00a0and well above the Friday openings for\u00a0Elvis\u00a0and\u00a0Rocketman.\u00a0Michael\u00a0repped 71% of the total market\u00a0Wednesday, and of course, it was No. 1 for the day.<\/p>\n

\n\tItaly\u00a0delivered\u00a0$1.3M\u00a0on Wednesday at 480 locations with more than 2.3k showtimes, dominating the market with a 72% share. The Antoine Fuqua-directed pic written by John Logan produced by and Graham King posted the\u00a0highest per-theater average by a significant margin. And, yes, it\u2019s the\u00a0biggest opening day ever for a musical biopic, above\u00a0Bohemian Rhapsody.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: \u2018Michael\u2019 Stars Explain Why Biopic Doesn\u2019t Include Child Abuse Allegations: \u201cThere Could Be A Sequel\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tMexico\u00a0expanded to wider previews on Wednesday, adding\u00a0$1.1M\u00a0to reach a running total of\u00a0$1.6M.\u00a0No. 1 pic with a strong\u00a064% market share.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpain also had Michael at No. 1 with $1.1M\u00a0on Wednesday across 520 screens and a 62% market share. It was the highest opening day for a biopic ever there, outgrossing both the Wednesday opening of\u00a0Bohemian Rhapsody\u00a0and the Thursday opening of\u00a0Oppenheimer.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn\u00a0Germany,\u00a0where Jackson toured the most, the movie made $1M on Wednesday at 849 screens, a No. 1 55% market share. That Day 1 came in ahead of\u00a0Bohemian Rhapsody\u2019s Thursday opening, representing the\u00a0biggest opening day for a musical biopic ever in the market.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: \u2018Michael\u2019: What The Critics Are Saying About The Michael Jackson Biopic<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tIn\u00a0Australia, Michael\u00a0delivered an excellent\u00a0$1.0M\u00a0from 290 locations on opening Wednesday. This is the\u00a0biggest opening day for a musical biopic ever, beating\u00a0local filmmaker Baz Luhrmann\u2019s Elvis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn\u00a0Brazil,\u00a0Michael\u00a0posted\u00a0$651k\u00a0for a running cume with previews of $2M. The combined preview result represents the biggest ever for a non-superhero, non-franchise film in the market. The Jaafar Jackson-starring movie continues to be No. 1, repping 68% of the marketshare.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: Kat Graham Confirms Diana Ross Role Cut From Michael Jackson Biopic For \u201cCertain Legal Considerations\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tStateside, Imax and premium-format fan screenings were held Wednesday night starting at 6 p.m. That money will be rolled into Thursday\u2019s previews, which began at noon. Some box office sources told us that presales for Michael were exceeding Project Hail Mary\u2018s; that Ryan Gosling movie scored $12M from both early previews and first Thursday showtimes.<\/p>\n

\n\tHeading into the weekend, it was forecast that Michael would open to $150M worldwide<\/a>, $65M-$70M of that coming from domestic, which would represent a record for a musical biopic ahead of 2015\u2019s Straight Outta Compton ($60.2M).<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: Paris Jackson Doesn\u2019t Get \u201cHow The Motion Picture Industry Works,\u201d MJ Estate Declares Over \u2018Michael\u2019 Biopic Costs & Reshoot\u00a0Questions<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Universal\u2018s international release of Lionsgate\u2018s Michael Jackson biopic, Michael, opened in most of its 82 markets Wednesday with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[88,14968,27354,27355,14497],"class_list":["post-602418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-lionsgate","tag-michael","tag-michael-jackson","tag-universal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}