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‘Michael’ Shakes Off Bad Reviews to Become a Box Office Juggernaut
Lionsgate estimated on Saturday that the Michael Jackson biopic would collect more than $200 million over its first few days in theaters.
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Weekend ticket sales in North America for “Michael” could reach $95 million. Box office analysts had expected about $70 million.
Credit...
Lionsgate
By
Brooks Barnes
Reporting from Los Angeles
April 25, 2026,
4:07 p.m. ET
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“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 more than $200 million worldwide in its opening weekend. Lionsgate, which produced the PG-13 movie, released the box office estimate on Saturday. 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, certainly 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 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.
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