‘Michael’ Is Now Chasing ‘Oppenheimer’ to Become the Highest-Grossing Biopic in History

When a film about the King of Pop first opened in April, the conversation was largely about whether it could match what ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ achieved nearly a decade ago. That question has long since been answered. The Michael Jackson biopic ‘Michael,’ directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Jaafar Jackson as his legendary uncle, did not just match the Freddie Mercury story, it obliterated it. And now the film is aiming at a far bigger target.

Eight weekends into its global theatrical run, the film continues to defy the natural gravity that pulls most blockbusters toward their final resting numbers. After seven weeks in release, ‘Michael’ has now earned $932.2 million worldwide, with international audiences contributing $569.5 million, representing 61.1% of the total, while domestic earnings have climbed to $362.8 million. The momentum has not faded. It has, in several key markets, actually accelerated.

The eighth weekend brought numbers that stopped analysts in their tracks. As tracked by film analyst Luiz Fernando, the film added an estimated $19.1 million overseas on its eighth weekend with a near-zero percent drop, a figure he directly attributed to Japan’s wide theatrical debut finally joining the global count. For comparison, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ dropped 15% internationally at the same point in its run, and ‘Oppenheimer’ fell 60.8%. That context reframes what ‘Michael’ is doing not just as commercial success, but as a genuine leg-out phenomenon.

Should ticket sales keep climbing and surpass $975 million, ‘Michael’ will overtake ‘Oppenheimer’ as the highest-grossing biopic of all time, having already dethroned ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ at $911 million as the biggest music biopic in history. That puts the film in extraordinarily rare company, currently ranking as the second-highest-grossing biopic of any kind, trailing only ‘Oppenheimer’ at around $975.8 million.

With Japan continuing to perform strongly and other international markets like Russia still contributing to the total, industry watchers believe ‘Michael’ has a real shot at climbing toward $1.05 billion before its theatrical run winds down. That would not only make it the highest-grossing biopic ever made, but also only the second film of this year to reach the billion-dollar mark globally, after ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.’

The role of late-opening markets in ‘Michael’s run cannot be overstated. Japan, which did not receive a wide release until June 12, has been the fuel in the tank the film needed for this final push. Lionsgate partnered with Kino for the Japan release, while Russia, handled separately through Volga, had already contributed $10 million to the overall total even before Japan’s opening weekend numbers were folded in.

The film added more than $44 million worldwide over a single week during this stretch, proving that its theatrical run still has plenty of life left in it. For a film with a reported production budget close to $200 million, the sustained performance across eight weekends and 85 markets is a validation of both the subject matter and the execution.

The achievement means producer Graham King has now broken his own all-time record for music biopics twice over. He produced ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and now ‘Michael,’ making him the only producer in history to hold the top two spots in the category simultaneously. The Lionsgate and Universal co-production has seen Universal generating $540.5 million of the international total after acquiring foreign theatrical and ancillary rights, a deal structure that proved enormously lucrative for both parties.

What began as a film that faced years of delays, contentious reshoots tied to legal disputes over its original script, and genuine uncertainty about whether audiences would show up, has become one of the defining theatrical events of recent memory. The King of Pop’s hold on global popular culture, it turns out, is as strong as ever, and the box office charts are making that case better than any argument could.

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