‘Michael’ Is Still Holding the No. 1 Spot as Its Global Run Is Nothing Short of Historic
The Michael Jackson biopic ‘Michael’ has now entered its fifth weekend and is still sitting at the top of the Russian box office, which is just one small piece of a global story that keeps rewriting records.
According to tracking shared by box office analyst Luiz Fernando, the film grossed $345k on its fifth Friday across 969 Russian theaters, a modest drop of just 31.3% from the previous Friday, pushing its Russian cumulative total to $19.4 million from 2.7 million admissions.
Industry observers are now projecting a final Russian theatrical haul of somewhere between $22 million and $28 million, a remarkable finish for any film in its fifth week of release. The film’s staying power in Russia reflects a pattern that has repeated itself across markets worldwide as the biopic refuses to fade in the way most releases do after their opening weeks.
Globally, ‘Michael’ is currently sitting just $40 million away from the $1 billion mark, making it the highest-grossing biographical film and highest-grossing music biopic of all time, and holding firm at second place on the worldwide box office chart for the year. The film has earned $358.6 million domestically and $553.3 million internationally, with Universal Pictures generating the bulk of the overseas total after acquiring foreign theatrical rights.
The records that have fallen along the way are staggering. The film debuted with a $97.2 million North American opening, which became the biggest opening ever for a musical biopic, surpassing ‘Straight Outta Compton’s’ $60.2 million launch from 2015. It then dethroned ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ as the all-time highest-grossing music biopic after surpassing that film’s $911 million lifetime global total.
The road to release was not without turbulence. The production was forced into major reshoots after the Jackson estate identified an issue with how one of Jackson’s accusers was portrayed in John Logan’s original screenplay, adding significantly to the budget and pushing the film’s release back to 2026. The final cut ends with Michael beginning his Bad World Tour, just before the first abuse allegations arose, a creative choice the filmmakers said was to focus on his rise and leave the rest of his story for a potential sequel.
That sequel is now officially in development. Lionsgate confirmed the follow-up project in May, with director Antoine Fuqua having noted that enough footage was filmed during production to support a film covering Jackson’s later life. The estate and studio are clearly confident that audience appetite for this story is far from satisfied.
John Branca, one of the producers on the film, said after the opening weekend that the global reaction on social media and at the box office signaled something the industry had not seen before. With ‘Michael’ closing in on a billion dollars and still topping charts in its fifth week, that assessment is looking more accurate by the day.
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