Despite harsh reviews, Michael, the biopic directed by Antoine Fuqua starring Jaafar Jackson posts a spectacular opening. The film grossed about $97 million in the United States and Canada during its first week. Moreover, it reached $217.4 million worldwide. In France, it recorded 285,679 admissions. This start reveals the intact power of the icon Michael Jackson, between popular nostalgia, heritage strategy, and blockbuster logic.
A Success That Far Exceeds a Simple Film
One might be tempted to see a classic case of disconnect between critics and the public. That would be too simplistic. Michael doesn’t function only as a feature film. It acts as a reconstructed concert, as a living exhibition tour, as a device capable of reactivating intimate and family memories. For some viewers, seeing it is not only about discovering staging or a screenplay. It’s about finding songs, gestures, costumes, a voice and, more, a place in their own history.
That is one of the keys to the phenomenon. Michael Jackson is not just celebrity. He belongs to that small number of artists whose repertoire long ceased to be a mere catalog and became a cultural environment. His tracks cross generations, weddings, parties, playlists, social media and schoolyards. The biopic thus arrives carried by colossal emotional capital. The audience is not confronting a stranger whose trajectory must be discovered. They enter an already shared, already sung, already danced imaginary.
The effect does not stop at the darkened theaters. Associated Press reports that in the United States, Michael Jackson streams increased by 95% over the opening weekend. Indeed, they rose to 31.7 million plays versus 16.3 million the previous weekend. Jackson 5 songs also saw strong gains. The film therefore acts as a beachhead to relaunch music consumption. It doesn’t just sell tickets. It recirculates a heritage, with all that implies in rights, visibility and commercial revival.
Why Critics Resist And Why That Changes Nothing
Anglo-Saxon press has not spared Michael. Many criticized the film for its slickness and narrative caution. In addition, it was faulted for not addressing frankly the controversial areas of the star’s life. Antoine Fuqua films efficiently, sometimes with panache, but the complaint keeps recurring. The film prefers momentum to examination, fervor to doubt, reconstruction to friction. In other words, it resembles less an investigation than a celebration held under control.
This point is decisive, because the controversies surrounding Michael Jackson never disappeared from the public sphere. The accusations of sexual assault on minors made over the years continue to weigh on any enterprise of rehabilitation or celebration. The film moreover chooses to stop before the most explosive period of that public story. Several critics see this as a way of circumventing the difficulty rather than confronting it. The commercial success therefore does not dissipate the discomfort. It skirts it or suspends it. It is precisely this displacement that deserves scrutiny.
Because the public does not necessarily seek the same thing as critics. The latter judge a cinematic object. The ordinary viewer often buys a broader promise. They come for the music, for the spectacle, for the figure, for rediscovered childhood, for a moment shared with others. Sometimes they also come out of curiosity, to see for themselves what everyone is talking about. In an attention economy that’s saturated, controversy does not always destroy an event. It can also strengthen its centrality.
The case of Michael thus recalls an obvious truth cinema occasionally forgets. A biopic musical is not just a biographical narrative. It’s a hybrid format, halfway between fiction, concert, heritage object and mass rite. The precedent of Bohemian Rhapsody already showed this. Critical reservations matter, but they do not always weigh heavily against the power of a globally established repertoire. As long as the theater promises the song, the performance and the thrill of recognition, aesthetic judgment is not enough to stem demand.
France, Between Popular Fervor And Critical Caution
The French case deserves attention, precisely because it nuances without contradicting the global momentum. With 285,679 admissions in the opening week from April 22 to 29, Michael records, according to AlloCiné and CBO, the best debut among new releases of the period and the third launch of the year in France. It’s not the American tidal wave. It is nonetheless a very solid start in a market where reference points are fragmenting. Moreover, few films can still claim to rally audiences so quickly.
This French performance tells something precise. Michael Jackson remains a figure of shared culture there. His name still draws multiple generations, from fans of international pop to younger viewers. Indeed, the latter discover him through digital circulation, fragmented clips and incessant covers. The film also benefits from a rare advantage. It can charm cinephile audiences curious to see what Fuqua does with such charged material, while at the same time attracting a much broader crowd, drawn first by the icon.
But France also keeps its distance. Critical reception there is far from pure enthusiasm. Reservations about the writing, the chosen angle and the avoidance of the most troubling aspects of the character are well present. This is where the subject takes its full scope. We are not facing unanimous mania, but a coexistence of readings. On one hand, the desire to see Michael Jackson again on the big screen, even if in the form of a highly produced reconstruction. On the other, the impossibility of considering this return as neutral.
The Cast, Or The Art Of Making The Legend Believable
One of the film’s most effective levers lies in its cast. Jaafar Jackson, Michael Jackson’s nephew, portrays the adult star. Juliano Krue Valdi plays the prodigy child. Colman Domingo brings his gravity to Joe Jackson, feared father and decisive manager. Nia Long embodies Katherine Jackson with solemn softness. Miles Teller appears as John Branca. Kendrick Sampson plays Quincy Jones. Larenz Tate, Berry Gordy. Jessica Sula, La Toya Jackson. This lineup is valuable not only for its notoriety. It creates a system of immediate recognition for the viewer.
The choice of Jaafar Jackson concentrates part of the fascination. This is not an actor coming from outside, but a family member. Indeed, he is tasked with reanimating a face, an energy and a silhouette. The choice is shrewd. It gives the film a form of emotional authenticity, even when the writing seems more questionable. In a project so closely linked to the Jackson estate, casting becomes a narrative argument as much as a symbolic one. It promises a proximity that borders on transmission.
This device sheds light on the film’s success. The audience does not buy only a story. It buys an embodiment deemed legitimate. In the realm of musical biopics, this question is central. A film can lack depth and still triumph if it offers a few seconds of grace, a step, a look, an inflection that suddenly make the icon credible again. Popular cinema also lives on those moments of truth.
An Industrial Victory More Than A Moral Verdict
Finally, one must also look at Michael for what it is. It is a very ambitious industrial product, backed by a global brand. Moreover, it is designed to circulate quickly and widely. Lionsgate for North America, Universal in several international markets, a soundtrack that extends the film beyond the theater, a release treated as a worldwide event. Everything helps make this launch a case study. The musical biopic has become a particularly profitable genre when it rests on an already canonical body of work. It reassures investors, mobilizes multiple audiences at once and opens revenue streams far beyond box office.
Nothing guarantees what comes next. The figures cited remain those of a start. Studio consolidations can still move them. Above all, the second weekend will say more about the strength of word-of-mouth. But the first signal is already clear. Michael has proven that poor critical reception is no longer enough to prevent a film’s commercial explosion. Indeed, this happens when it leans on a global myth and a song library. Moreover, it relies on a perfectly oiled heritage strategy.
Perhaps the most significant point is there. This triumph erases neither the controversies nor the film’s weaknesses. It shows that in the era of monetized memory, an artist can return less as a historical subject than as an experience to relive. Michael wins not only because it tells Michael Jackson’s story. It asserts itself because it re-circulates, in spectacular form, the undiminished pull of his myth.