There’s a new box office king.
The Michael Jackson biopic Michael has officially dethroned Bohemian Rhapsody to become the highest-grossing music biopic of all time at the domestic box office while simultaneously becoming only the second music biopic in history to cross $500 million globally.. Per Deadline, the Lionsgate film has crossed $240.4 million in North America through its third weekend, surpassing the $216.6 million domestic total of the 2018 Queen biopic starring Rami Malek, a record that had stood for nearly a decade. The global cume is now north of $570 million.
But the domestic crown is just the latest milestone in what has been a record-breaking run from the start.
A Historic Opening
Michael arrived in late April with the biggest biopic opening of all time, debuting to $97.2 million domestically and $217 million globally, surpassing Oppenheimer‘s $82.4 million domestic launch and opening significantly ahead of Straight Outta Compton‘s previous music biopic opening record. It also marked Lionsgate’s strongest debut in over a decade and the second-biggest opening weekend of 2026, behind only The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.
The records kept coming in the days that followed. The film crossed $100 million domestically in just four days on the strength of a $7.67 million Monday, the biggest Monday ever for a music biopic and the biggest Monday for any live-action film in 2026 at the time. It followed that with an $11.1 million Tuesday, the fourth-best April Tuesday ever for a live-action release, behind only Avengers: Endgame, Furious 7, and A Minecraft Movie.
The Film
Directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by John Logan, Michael traces Jackson’s life from his childhood years in the Jackson 5 through the global explosion of Thriller and the launch of the Bad era. The film stars Jaafar Jackson in his feature debut as his famous uncle, alongside Colman Domingo, Nia Long, Miles Teller, Laura Harrier, Larenz Tate, Liv Symone, Mike Myers, Kendrick Sampson, and more.
Despite mixed-to-negative critical reviews, hovering in the high 30s on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences responded far more warmly, awarding the film an A- CinemaScore. Strong word-of-mouth has kept crowds coming back throughout its theatrical run.
A Sequel Is Already in the Works
The success of Michael has Lionsgate moving quickly. Lionsgate film chair Adam Fogelson confirmed on The Town podcast with Matt Belloni that a sequel is in development. Producer Graham King wants to shoot this year, and director Antoine Fuqua has made clear he wants back in, telling Deadline it “would kill me if somebody else did it” — though his upcoming Netflix project with Denzel Washington could complicate the timing.
The sequel faces a significant creative challenge. The first film ended in 1988, meaning a follow-up would have to navigate the 1990s, one of the most scrutinized decades of Jackson’s life, including the 1993 Super Bowl halftime show, the Dangerous and HIStory eras, and the allegations that the Jackson estate’s agreement with Lionsgate bars from being dramatized. That constraint reportedly cost the production $50 million in reshoots on the first film. Writer John Logan is reportedly still working on how to crack the screenplay.
Fuqua confirmed that footage already exists extending well beyond where the first film ended. “We went pretty far,” he said. “We went through the Jordan allegations we couldn’t use. We went farther than that, maybe a year or two after that, when things turned against Michael.”
The first film closed with a credits card reading “His Story Continues.” Lionsgate is taking that literally.
Where It Stands Now
Bohemian Rhapsody‘s worldwide record of $910.8 million, driven largely by massive international markets including Japan and South Korea, remains intact for now. Whether Michael can close that gap over the remainder of its run is the question the industry is now watching closely.
What’s already certain is that Michael has rewritten what’s possible for the music biopic genre and it may not be finished yet.