The Michael Jackson biopic Michael arrives on premium video on demand this Tuesday, June 9, at $24.99 to buy on Apple TV, Prime Video, Fandango at Home, Google TV, and YouTube. The move comes with $860.7 million already banked worldwide. Bohemian Rhapsody’s all-time music biopic record of $910.8 million stands $50.1 million away.
Industry trade publication Deadline projects that gap closes after Michael opens in Japan on July 12, the one major market the film has yet to enter and the country that pushed Bohemian Rhapsody past $900 million to set the record it has held since 2019.
Six Weeks of Theater Legs
The film opened April 24 to $97.2 million domestically, the biggest debut in history for a music biopic, nearly doubling Straight Outta Compton’s $60.2 million record from 2015. Worldwide, that opening weekend landed at $218.8 million, with $24.4 million coming from IMAX screens alone, itself a record for a musical biographical film in premium large-format exhibition.
- $346.6M: cumulative domestic gross through June 5
- $514.1M: cumulative international gross through June 5
- $860.7M: current worldwide total, the second-highest music biopic gross in history
- $50.1M: gap to Bohemian Rhapsody’s all-time record of $910.8 million
By the weekend of May 29 through 31, the film finished fourth at the North American box office with $12 million, then added another $6 million from Monday through Friday of the following week. Six consecutive weekends in the domestic top five, including two at number one. For a film already six weeks into its run, that weekly floor is unusually high.
Lionsgate set the PVOD window at 46 days after the April 24 theatrical opening, the same compressed calendar blockbusters have standardized since the pandemic. The move does not close the theater business; Japan’s July 12 nationwide opening gives the film a major new revenue source even as home viewing opens. Physical media (DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K UHD) arrives July 14. No subscription streaming date has been set; the studio’s Starz deal means Michael will eventually land on that platform, though no timeline has been announced.
A Run That Defied Every Review
On Rotten Tomatoes, Michael holds a 38% approval rating from professional critics and a 97% audience score. CinemaScore, which surveys opening-night moviegoers, gave it an A minus.
Critics have focused largely on what the film excludes. Director Antoine Fuqua and producer Graham King, who also produced Bohemian Rhapsody, rewrote the third act after a legal clause in a 1993 settlement barred any film or television depiction of the then-accuser. The final script ends in 1988 with Jackson embarking on the Bad World Tour, before the abuse allegations arose. Bohemian Rhapsody itself received mixed reviews at release before its Oscars campaign reframed the conversation; Michael has so far skipped the critical rehabilitation phase entirely, relying on audience passion alone.
Casting goes wider than the marquee name. Jaafar Jackson, Michael Jackson’s nephew (son of Jermaine Jackson), plays the adult King of Pop in his acting debut. The supporting cast includes Colman Domingo as Joe Jackson, Nia Long as Katherine Jackson, Miles Teller as the pop star’s longtime manager John Branca, and Kendrick Sampson as Quincy Jones, who produced Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad. The film’s PG-13 rating and its IMAX-scaled concert recreations of Billie Jean, Thriller, and Beat It drove strong premium-format attendance from opening weekend through week six, contributing to the unusually high floor on weekly revenue.
The Arithmetic of $50 Million
Bohemian Rhapsody’s final worldwide gross holds as the all-time music biopic record. The gap to that number is now $50.1 million.
The retention curve tells the rest. Most blockbusters drop 50% or more in their second weekend; Michael fell 44%, from $97.2 million to $54 million, then continued to hold through six domestic top-five finishes. Bohemian Rhapsody opened lower at $51.1 million but showed its own unusual legs, declining just 38.9% in its second weekend and running for months. The Queen biopic ultimately drew 76% of its worldwide gross from international markets. Michael is running at 59.8% international, but that figure excludes Japan, the single market that most resembles the kind of slow-burn, high-volume run that built Bohemian Rhapsody’s international total.
| Metric | Michael (2026) | Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) |
|---|---|---|
| Opening weekend (domestic) | $97.2M | $51.1M |
| Weekend 2 drop | 44% | 38.9% |
| Domestic gross | $346.6M (running) | $216.6M (final) |
| International share | 59.8% (running) | 76% (final) |
| Japan gross | TBD (opens July 12) | $115.9M |
| Worldwide gross | $860.7M (running) | $910.8M (final) |
Michael‘s $346.6 million domestic total surpasses Bohemian Rhapsody’s entire domestic run by roughly $130 million. The remaining gap is international, and Japan is the variable that resolves it.
How Japan Carried Bohemian Rhapsody
When Bohemian Rhapsody crossed $900 million globally in April 2019, Japan was still its most active international market. The country contributed more than $115 million to Bohemian Rhapsody’s final tally, making it the single largest overseas market for the Queen biopic, ahead of South Korea’s $76 million and the United Kingdom’s $71 million. Japan kept the film running in its 23rd weekend with only an 18% drop, a level of persistence no other market came close to sustaining.
Japanese theater audiences have a documented pattern of extended engagement with music films tied to artists with a deep local fanbase. Rather than the front-loaded, fast-fading pattern common in North America, Japan’s market tends to accumulate slowly and broadly, pushing Bohemian Rhapsody past $900 million well after the film had essentially completed its run everywhere else.
Michael Jackson’s pull in Japan runs through decades of active history. He performed there across the Bad, Dangerous, and HIStory concert tours, drawing some of the largest crowds of his career in a country where his catalog remained in regular circulation long after his global commercial peak. The 2009 documentary Michael Jackson’s This Is It earned $57 million in Japan alone, a number that caught the industry off guard at the time and has since become a reference point when projecting Japanese appetite for any major Jackson release.
A Japan performance near Bohemian Rhapsody’s level, combined with the ongoing global weekly revenue from markets already open, takes Michael well past Bohemian Rhapsody’s record in the weeks after the Japan opening.
Japan Opens July 12
Michael is distributed in Japan by Kino Films, which finalized a deal with Lionsgate and producer Graham King’s GK Films for the Japan rights in 2024. The pre-release marketing in Tokyo has been extensive. TOHO Cinemas Ikebukuro deployed a towering outdoor staircase display for the film; Shinjuku Wald 9 mounted a building-wall installation visible from across the district grid. The Clappers Diner inside Grand Cinema Sunshine Ikebukuro received a full Michael aesthetic overhaul ahead of the nationwide opening, the kind of venue integration typically reserved for the largest Hollywood releases in the Japanese market.
Variety assessed the situation in late May, when the film was at $788 million: with Japan still to open, the biopic should eventually surpass Bohemian Rhapsody and become the highest-grossing musical biopic of all time. Since that report, Michael has added more than $72 million globally, narrowing the gap to $50.1 million.
Deadline’s projection puts the record in Japan’s hands. By the time the July 12 nationwide opening arrives, Michael will have been in theaters for nearly 80 days and will carry several additional weeks of global revenue on top of the current total. A Japan opening in the range of Bohemian Rhapsody’s $115.9 million would carry Michael past the $910.8 million mark with room to spare, even accounting for a slower per-week pace as the domestic and early international markets continue to age down.
Jaafar Jackson and the 2027 Awards Circuit
Variety’s chief film critic Owen Gleiberman offered one of the more positive critical assessments, writing that Jaafar Jackson “gets Michael’s tentative high sugary voice just right.” Variety’s separate awards coverage flagged Jaafar as a Golden Globe prospect, with Colman Domingo also tracking in supporting actor conversations for his portrayal of Joe Jackson.
The Academy Awards picture is narrower. Gold Derby’s Oscar analysis concluded that Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay are out of reach, given both the critical reception and the film’s deliberate narrative omissions. Separately, Gold Derby noted that of the ten biggest-grossing music biopics of the century, six received acting Oscar nominations, a rate that puts any film near the top of that chart inside the conversation by default. Technical categories are where Michael has its most visible prospects:
- Production design (period recreations spanning the 1960s through the 1980s)
- Costume design (three decades of Jackson’s concert and civilian wardrobe)
- Hair and makeup (the physical transformation across Jackson’s career stages)
- Sound (a category where musical biopics have historically performed well)
Box office scale has mattered to Academy voters before. Bohemian Rhapsody won four Oscars, including Best Actor for Rami Malek, during a commercial run that made the film impossible to sideline in any awards conversation. A film earning close to a billion dollars attracts the kind of industry attention that puts its performances and craft work in front of voters who might otherwise have passed. Graham King produced that film too. If Michael breaks the all-time record, he becomes the only producer in cinema history to hold both top spots on the music biopic chart.
Frequently Asked Questions
When Will Michael Be Available to Stream for Free on Starz or Netflix?
No free streaming date has been announced for Michael. As a Lionsgate film, it will eventually move to Starz under the studio’s existing output deal, but Lionsgate has not disclosed a timeline. Netflix is not currently in the picture for this title. Physical media (DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K UHD) arrives July 14, giving viewers an ownership option before any subscription streaming window opens.
Is a Michael Jackson Biopic Sequel in Development?
Lionsgate is developing a sequel. The first film ends at the Bad World Tour in 1988, a deliberate choice that reserves the latter years of Jackson’s life for a follow-up. Actress Nia Long, who plays Katherine Jackson, said during production that Michael was designed to highlight Jackson’s early journey while leaving the remainder of his life for a potential sequel. No director or release date has been announced for the second film.
Does the Film Cover the Abuse Allegations Against Michael Jackson?
No. The film ends in 1988, before the 1993 child sexual abuse allegations arose. The original screenplay dramatized the 1993 lawsuit, but producer Graham King and screenwriter John Logan removed those sequences after discovering a clause in a legal settlement that barred any depiction of the then-accuser in film or television. Reshoots to implement the revised third act took place in June 2025, lasting approximately three weeks.
