Can ‘Michael’ Still Reach $1 Billion? The Slowing Box Office Math Is Making Fans Sweat

The Michael Jackson biopic ‘Michael’ is closer to a billion dollars than any music film in history, but the path there just got a little narrower.

According to box office analyst, the film sat at roughly $965 million through Thursday, June 25, and is projected to clear $970 million by the end of the current weekend, representing a global weekly increase of approximately $11 million compared to the $27 million it added the previous week.

The drop in momentum is significant for fans doing the arithmetic. With roughly $30 million still needed to reach $1 billion, the window is tightening just as new wide-release competition is entering the marketplace. Crossing $1 billion would make ‘Michael’ only the second film to reach that milestone at the global box office this year, after Universal’s ‘Super Mario Galaxy Movie.’

As of this week the film holds second place on the worldwide box office chart for the year and carries the title of the highest-grossing music biopic and biographical film ever released, with its momentum coming primarily from strong international performances across a wide range of markets. Russia, Brazil, and Japan have each been cited as territories delivering better-than-expected numbers in the film’s later weeks, but none of them individually can close the gap to a billion fast enough if the per-week trajectory continues to slow.

‘Michael’ opened to $97 million domestically and $217 million globally in its first weekend, the biggest debut in the history of the biographical genre, before following through with unusually strong holds. For comparison, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ opened to just $51 million before eventually compounding to over $910 million worldwide, meaning it built the vast majority of its total through extended longevity rather than frontloading. ‘Michael’ has followed a different but equally impressive pattern, combining a massive opening with solid hold percentages over subsequent weekends.

Overseas markets have been the primary engine of the film’s long-tail success, with the UK, France, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, and Australia each delivering over $30 million during the run, the kind of consistent international diversification that keeps films alive in cinemas long after domestic interest cools.

Whether the billion-dollar mark gets crossed likely depends on how well the film holds in Japan, which has been outpacing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’s’ performance there at every comparable point, and whether other late-arriving markets can contribute additional meaningful revenue before the film transitions more widely to digital platforms. The film is now in its tenth weekend, and the competition for screen space will only increase as new tentpoles arrive through July.

The math is still possible, but for the first time since ‘Michael’ started its record-breaking run, it is no longer a certainty. For a film that has rewritten the rulebook on what a music biopic can achieve commercially, falling just short of a billion would still represent an extraordinary achievement, even if it would sting for the fanbase tracking every dollar.

Have something to add? Let us know in the comments!