‘Michael’ Is Within Reach of the Greatest Domestic Biopic Record Ever Set

Few films in recent memory have rewritten the record books as methodically as the Michael Jackson biopic ‘Michael.’ Since its theatrical debut, the Antoine Fuqua-directed film starring Jaafar Jackson has been on a relentless climb up the domestic box office charts, knocking off milestone after milestone with the kind of consistency that has left analysts scrambling to revise their projections upward. The latest update makes the destination clearer than ever.

Eight weekends into its run, ‘Michael’ is still playing in thousands of theaters and still generating meaningful numbers on weekdays, an increasingly rare feat in the modern theatrical landscape. The film has already surpassed ‘American Sniper’ to become the all-time second-highest-grossing biopic domestically, with a cumulative U.S. total now sitting at $362.8 million. That figure arrived alongside news that the film’s digital release, which launched on June 9, has begun to apply modest pressure on its theater counts and weekday legs.

That $362.8 million domestic figure is no longer just an impressive number in isolation. It now sits within spitting distance of a record that has stood for over two decades. According to box office analyst Luiz Fernando, ‘Michael’ is set to surpass ‘Deadpool’s’ $363.1 million domestic run before the end of the same night his tracking was published, claiming the title of 71st highest-grossing film of all time in North American box office history.

As dramatic as the ‘Deadpool’ milestone is, it is really a stepping stone toward a far more historic benchmark. ‘The Passion of the Christ’ is the all-time highest-grossing biopic at the domestic box office, having collected $370.3 million domestically over its lifetime. That record has stood since 2004, across more than two decades of blockbuster releases, superhero films, and franchise juggernauts. No biopic, not ‘American Sniper,’ not ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ not ‘Oppenheimer,’ has come close enough to make the conversation feel urgent. Until now.

One complicating factor hanging over the final stretch of ‘Michael’s’ theatrical run is the timing of its digital rollout. After making its digital streaming debut on June 9, the film conquered the digital streaming charts and became the number one film on both the Apple TV store and Amazon Prime Video. Whether audiences who might have otherwise bought a theater ticket will now opt for a home viewing instead is the central question shaping the film’s path to the record.

Luiz Fernando’s tracking suggests the biopic is eyeing a final domestic run in the $370 to $380 million range. If those projections hold, it would mean ‘Michael’ not only becomes the highest-grossing biopic in North American box office history, but also does so while competing against its own digital availability, a genuinely remarkable achievement that speaks to the sustained cultural enthusiasm surrounding the film.

The film carries a price tag near $200 million, making it one of the most expensive biopics ever made, with those costs split between Lionsgate, Universal, and the Michael Jackson estate. What began as a commercially risky proposition, a biopic about one of the most controversial figures in pop history, has become one of the defining theatrical success stories of the decade.

The film has matched ‘The Passion of the Christ’s’ 48-day streak of earning above $1 million per day at the domestic box office, tying the biopic record for that specific feat. That kind of longevity, the ability to keep generating meaningful daily grosses well into the second month of release, is the engine behind everything the film is now chasing.

For Lionsgate, which has already seen this become its highest-grossing film in years, the domestic record would represent a final punctuation mark on a theatrical run that exceeded almost every expectation set for it. For audiences, it is further proof that Michael Jackson’s hold on popular culture remains as powerful in a cinema as it ever was on a stage.

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