“Michael” is a megahit.
In one of the biggest disconnects between reviews and ticket sales in memory — certainly for a non-sequel — the Michael Jackson biopic “Michael” overcame animosity from critics and was on pace to collect about $217 million worldwide in its opening weekend. Lionsgate, which produced the PG-13 movie, released the box office estimate on Sunday. It based the tally on actual and projected turnout for Wednesday through Sunday.
“If you give audiences what they want, they will come,” Adam Fogelson, chairman of the Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, said in a statement. Lionsgate is expected to announce plans to make a sequel (or two) in short order.
Mr. Fogelson’s comment was partly a response to critics, who savaged “Michael” for ending its storytelling in 1988 — before the first child molestation accusations against Mr. Jackson surfaced. “Which is kind of like ending an O.J. Simpson biopic with him winning the Heisman Trophy,” the critic Sean Burns wrote in a review on Tuesday.
Box office analysts said that reviews criticizing “Michael” for leaving out the molestation claims (along with related media coverage of the film) almost certainly increased ticket sales, especially for fans but also for families. “If you didn’t want any of that material and/or didn’t want to be depressed by a Michael Jackson biopic, then those pans read like raves,” the box office analyst Scott Mendelson wrote in his subscription newsletter on Friday.
Reviews were 38 percent positive, according to Rotten Tomatoes, which resulted in a “rotten” rating from the site. In contrast, the Rotten Tomatoes audience score stood at 97 percent positive on Saturday. And ticket buyers gave “Michael” an A-minus grade in CinemaScore exit polls.
A month ago, “Michael” was on track to collect about $50 million in its first weekend in theaters in the United States and Canada, with analysts basing that estimate on advance ticket sales and surveys that track moviegoer interest. As Lionsgate’s marketing campaign for the film increased in intensity over the past two weeks, opening-weekend expectations rose to roughly $70 million.
On Saturday, Lionsgate said “Michael” was “roaring” toward $90 million to $100 million in domestic ticket sales, setting a record — even after adjusting for inflation — for a musical biopic. “Straight Outta Compton” has held the record since 2015. It opened to $60 million, or nearly $85 million in today’s dollars, and ultimately grossed $200 million (or an adjusted $283 million).
“Michael” was an expensive movie to make, partly because of extensive visual effects. Mr. Jackson’s pet chimpanzee Bubbles and pet python Muscles were both digitally created, for instance. Including reshoots, the film’s budget soared to about $200 million, or 30 percent more than initially planned. More than 400 people worked on it.
Lionsgate, Universal Pictures and the Michael Jackson estate shouldered the budget. Universal released “Michael” outside North America, except in Japan, where Kino Films paid a hefty sum for the rights. The film collected about $120.4 million in Universal’s territories over the weekend, according to Comscore, which compiles box office data. It will be released in Japan in June.
“Michael” was directed by Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day”). It stars Mr. Jackson’s nephew, Jaafar Jackson, in his acting debut. Graham King (“Bohemian Rhapsody”) was the lead producer.
Lionsgate spent more than $50 million to market the movie in North America. The studio designed the advertising campaign to tap into nostalgia for Michael Jackson’s talent — “joyful moments in our lives that we associate with his music,” as the studio put it last week. In particular, Lionsgate tried to mobilize Black moviegoers. One successful stunt involved teaming with marching bands from historically Black colleges and universities.
It worked: Black moviegoers made up about 38 percent of the domestic audience over the weekend, analysts said on Sunday. Latinos made up the second-largest audience, at 26 percent.
“This movie played across every single demographic — from an age perspective, from a race perspective, from a gender perspective,” Mr. Fogelson said by phone on Sunday. “You can’t get to this kind of number unless you really are an event for everybody.”
He noted that videos of people dancing in the aisles during the movie had washed across TikTok, X and Instagram. “It’s a party,” Mr. Fogelson said, adding that he was “incredibly optimistic” that “Michael” would continue to attract crowds in the weeks ahead as a result.
“Michael,” of course, has prompted a surge of interest in Mr. Jackson’s song catalog. (Streaming numbers have been rising rapidly on Spotify.) Ticket sales have also increased for “MJ,” a stage musical that has been playing on Broadway since 2022 and is touring the United States.
But the movie has also brought new challenges to Mr. Jackson’s name and posthumous businesses. Four members of the Cascio family, who had a long association with Mr. Jackson, filed a lawsuit in February saying that the star repeatedly sexually assaulted them when they were children. They detailed their claims in an interview with The New York Times on Friday.
The estate has called their suit “a desperate money grab,” and noted that the Cascio family members had long publicly defended Jackson and denied he had ever harmed them.