“Michael” is starting strong at international box office, generating $18.5 million on opening day. Those ticket sales include $16.6 million on Wednesday and $1.9 million in Tuesday’s previews.
Lionsgate’s musical biopic about the rise of Michael Jackson debuts in North America and 82 overseas markets on Friday. Through the weekend, “Michael” is poised to dominate over global box office charts with projections of $65 million to $75 million (or more) domestically and $75 million to $80 million internationally.
So far, the poor reviews from critics aren’t slowing the King of Pop’s roll. “Michael” had the strongest start in France with $2.6 million from 743 screens on Wednesday, followed by the United Kingdom and Ireland with $2.6 million, Italy with $1.3 million from 480 locations, Mexico with $1.1 million and Spain with $1.1 million from 520 screens. Universal, which is rolling out the film in international markets, estimates these figures are pacing ahead of the 2018 Queen-centric “Bohemian Rhapsody” and 2023’s father-of-the-atomic-bomb drama “Oppenheimer” in most territories; those films are two of the highest-grossing biopics in the past decade.
Antoine Fuqua directed “Michael,” which charts the singer’s early days in the Jackson 5 to becoming one of the biggest entertainers on the planet. Jaafar Jackson, the real-life nephew of Michael Jackson, is portraying the King of Pop in the film, with Colman Domingo and Nia Long playing his parents, Joe and Katherine Jackson.
Critics have complained that “Michael” takes a sanitized look at the life of Jackson because it doesn’t include the child sexual abuse allegations that were leveled against the singer later in his career. Initially, the screenplay had recounted a 1993 lawsuit against Jackson, but those sequences had to be removed after producers discovered a clause in the settlement with the young accuser that barred the depiction or mention of him in film or television. Now the film ends during the Bad tour in 1988. “Michael” cost at least $170 million to produce, making it one of the most expensive biopics of all time.
