Technically, the summer box office season doesn’t start until the first weekend of May, but this weekend brings one humdinger of a prologue with Lionsgate/Universal’s King of Pop biopic “Michael,” which is coming with sky-high expectations that it doesn’t necessarily even need to meet to be a hit for its studios.
Directed by Antoine Fuqua, “Michael” — which is designed as the first part of a two-part retelling of Michael Jackson’s career — sees Jaafar Jackson step into the shoes of his famous uncle as the film follows his rise from a child star performing alongside his brothers in the Jackson 5 to the biggest music star of the 80s thanks to his record-breaking albums “Thriller” and “Bad.”
Since development on the film began three years ago with Fuqua’s hiring, “Michael” has been circled as likely one of the top grossing films of whatever year it comes out in; and after Disney moved “Avengers: Doomsday” and “Avengers: Secret Wars” from Marvel’s usual early May release slot, “Michael” seemed like the only film with the presence that could fill that hole.
We saw in 2018 just how powerful a biopic about a generation-defining music star can be at the box office when “Bohemian Rhapsody” grossed $903.6 million worldwide, the highest ever for a music biopic and second most for any biopic behind “Oppenheimer.” All due respect to the almighty Queen and the late, great Freddie Mercury, but MJ is arguably an even bigger star. Surely that means bigger numbers, right?
Well, let’s pump the brakes. First off, critical reception for “Michael” is proving to be far worse than for “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which didn’t get gushing praise from reviewers but was still fairly positive with a 60% Rotten Tomatoes score.
“Michael,” on the other hand, currently stands at a dismal 35% Rotten Tomatoes score at time of writing. While some praise was reserved for Jaafar Jackson and his work faithfully emulating the iconic MJ performances from the Moonwalk at Motown 25 to the famous “Thriller” music video, the rest of the film was dismissed as a hagiographic take on Jackson’s career, sidestepping almost any allusions to the controversies and molestation charges that would be leveled at him in the 90s and 2000s.
According to Variety, the change in tone was due to cuts and reshoots that pulled scenes that directly address the charges, including an opening that covers Jackson’s arrest in 1993, after Jackson’s estate discovered a clause in a settlement with one of the musician’s accusers that barred the depiction or mention of him in any movie.
Instead of focusing on those charges, “Michael” derives its central conflict from Jackson’s tense relationship with his father, Joseph, played by Colman Domingo, who sees his solo career as a threat to the Jackson 5.
Despite the negative reviews from that shift, MJ still commands a global fanbase that will surely show up on opening night to see “Michael,” and even the lowest box office projections expect the film to set a new opening weekend record for music biopics. That record is currently held by the N.W.A. biopic “Straight Outta Compton,” which opened to $60.2 million in 2015.
Domestic projections for “Michael” currently stand at $65-70 million, while some exhibitor sources tell TheWrap they believe the film could reach the $80 million mark, which would put it in the neighborhood of the $82.4 million opening weekend of “Oppenheimer” in July 2023.
Even at $65 million, “Michael” would be off to a big start for Lionsgate, which is handling domestic distribution while Universal is handling overseas. If “Michael” opens to that figure, it would be the highest non-franchise opening in Lionsgate history and rank seventh on the studio’s all-time list behind the four “Hunger Games” films, the final “Twilight” film “Breaking Dawn — Part 2” and “John Wick: Chapter 4,” which is the lowest of that bunch with a $73.8 million opening.
From that $65 million opening, “Michael” would be well positioned to pass the unadjusted $216 million domestic total of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” If it did, it would become the sixth Lionsgate film to eclipse the $200 million mark and pass the $187 million domestic run of “John Wick 4.” After that, it would be up to Universal’s overseas returns to see if “Michael” has a shot at reaching “Bohemian” worldwide.
And both in the U.S. and internationally, that all comes down to how “Michael” is received outside of his enduring hardcore fanbase. Will the promise of faithful recreations of MJ’s greatest hits be enough of a global draw against upcoming competition like sequels to “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Mortal Kombat,” or will the evasion of the thornier aspects of Jackson’s legacy turn off casual moviegoers who might have been interested in seeing how Fuqua and his team handled it?
Regardless, “Michael” is running off of the same fundamentals as any music biopic, from “Bob Marley: One Love” and “Elvis” to “A Complete Unknown.” At its core, the film needs to have a charismatic lead effectively recreate a musician’s most famous performances, and based on what positive words have been said by critics, “Michael” does do that. That should be enough to allow “Michael” to be a hit for Lionsgate and outperform the vast majority of its peers in the genre, even if it doesn’t dethrone Queen.
