The critics wrote, “Bad!”. But the audience said, “Thriller!”.
Beating box office predictions by more than $10 million domestically last weekend, the Michael Jackson biopic “Michael” grossed a huge $97 million in the US — that’s more than last year’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” — and $217 million worldwide.
Numbers like that must have Lionsgate execs doing the moonwalk.
The movie also demolished a longstanding record. Its stateside total handily bested reigning top musician biography “Straight Outta Compton”’s $60 million opening from back in 2015.
The scale of its success has surprised some. Critics loathed “Michael,” finding the characterization of “Billie Jean” singer flat, and the story, which ends in 1988, evasive. The movie’s RottenTomatoes score is 38%.
But audiences told ‘em to “beat it,” rating “Michael” a near perfect 98%.
How did the film defy the odds?
It didn’t.
Even with questionable quality and a scandalous subject who was dogged by allegations of sexual abuse against children in the last years of his life, “Michael” was always going to be massive, no matter what.
For many, it’s not so much a case of “forgive and forget” as “forget and ignore.” Fans love the songs. So what? Plus, time has dulled people’s memories of the accusations, which began in 1993. Back then, the oldest millennials were only 12 years old, and Gen Z hadn’t arrived yet.
That’s the cohort who most robustly showed up at the cinema last weekend. Remarkably for “Michael,” early PostTrak data indicated that 58% of ticket buyers were under 35.
They’ve grown up with a very different Michael than the baby-dangling “Wacko Jacko” from the papers. They only know the music man.
That’s how the Jackson estate has been laying the groundwork for a film for decades — by focusing on the artist.
When the singer died in 2009, his limping estate was $450 million in the red and his reputation was in tatters.
Then the release of “This Is It,” the posthumous concert documentary film made up of rehearsal footage from the O2 Arena in London, just four months after his death of an overdose in 2009, became the highest grossing concert movie ever and interest in his music exploded.
Four years later came “One,” a Cirque du Soleil spectacle at the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas that celebrates The King of Pop’s music and includes him as a character. It has been running since 2013.
On Broadway, “MJ the Musical” — the 2022 show set during rehearsals for the 1992 “Dangerous” world tour — has proved another hit and has spawned productions around the world. Actor Myles Frost won the Best Actor Tony Award for playing Jackson.
So, audiences have steadily become accustomed to entertaining depictions of the star that put the spotlight on his music and singular performing ability — not his later controversies. That strategy has worked, and today the Jackson estate is worth an estimated $2 billion.
Another consideration of “Michael”’s triumph is race.
In 2019, a YouGov poll taken on the 10th anniversary of his death found that while 45% of white respondents believed the singer committed abuse, just 15% of blacks did.
And, according to PostTrak, black moviegoers made up the biggest share of “Michael” audience members, at 36%. White and Hispanic viewers tied for second place at 25%.
“Michael”’s last weapon is that it makes the songs the star.
Critics derided the film for ignoring the elephant in the room, but that’s not what moviegoers want.
Jackson had 13 No. 1 hits on the Billboard charts, and “Michael” crams in as many of them as possible, much like the behemoth Queen flick “Bohemian Rhapsody” ($910 million at the box office) did in 2018.
Nostalgic fans enjoy hearing and seeing their favorite songs performed, even by an impersonator.
When a biopic doesn’t showcase the biggest tunes, things can go south fast.
Just ask the filmmakers of last year’s Bruce Springsteen movie “Deliver Me From Nowhere,” which was about the making of connoisseur favorite album “Nebraska” and grossed a measly $45 million globally.
Really, really bad.
