From Hollywood to Home: Black Voices in Entertainment
- Directed by Antoine Fuqua, Jaafar Jackson portrays his superstar uncle, Michael Jackson.
- Huge opening weekend ($217 million) and sustained daily grosses; domestic run made it Lionsgate's third-highest grosser.
- Centers on Michael Jackson's early years with the Jackson 5 through the 1988 Bad tour; drew negative reviews for omitting abuse allegations.
- Legal prohibition on depicting child abuse claims forced a third-act reshoot and nearly yearlong delay; film ends with "The Story Continues", hinting at a sequel.
Michael is not only the highest-grossing music biopic ever, it has now become the highest-grossing biopic of all time just two months after it hit theaters. It has scored $977 million at the box office, surpassing the previous record holder, Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-winning Oppenheimer, which earned $965 million three years ago, a rep for Lionsgate confirmed to Rolling Stone.
The Antoine Fuqua-directed film, where Jaafar Jackson portrays his superstar uncle, had already scored a record during its opening weekend globally with $217 million in April. It continued to gross more than $1 million each day, earning a domestic total of $370 million to date, making it Lionsgate’s third-highest domestic-grossing film, as The Wrap reports. The Hunger Games at $408 million in 2012 and its sequel, 2013’s Catching Fire are in the Number One and Two spots.
Michael, which centers on Michael Jackson‘s early years with his brothers in the Jackson 5 up until his 1988 Bad tour, has been a big hit in the theaters despite garnering negative reviews and criticism over it not addressing the child sexual abuse allegations that the King of Pop faced.
Along with the film becoming a bona fide blockbuster, the biopic has increased interest in Jackson’s music. His back catalog streams have surged, sending Thriller to Number Seven on the Billboard 200. His solo work earned a career-best 137.5 million official on-demand streams during the opening week of April 24-30 in the United States, per Billboard — up 146 percent from his previous career high.
It also caused the music he created with the Jackson 5 (and later the Jacksons) to surge that same week, generating 10.1 million streams throughout the week, up 135 percent from the week prior.
Michael is expected to gross upwards of $1 billion at the global box office, and it looks to be heading that way soon. The Jackson estate-approved biopic supported the movie through troubling production, including news that the filmmakers were legally prohibited from portraying the child abuse allegations made against Jackson by accuser Jordan Chandler. That forced a reshoot of the entire third act, and delayed the release of the movie by nearly a year. The film ends with the words “The Story Continues,” implying that a sequel may be coming.
This article originally appeared on Rolling Stone.
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