Box Office: 'Michael' Need Not Outgross 'Bohemian Rhapsody'

The $900 million Freddy Mercury movie remains by far the exception when comparing global grosses for musicals or music-focused biopics and melodramas

Wanna be startin’ somethin’!

Lionsgate just dropped its “final trailer” for Michael, a 60-second clip set mostly to “Billy Jean” and featuring an image of Jafar Jackson as Michael Jackson within the music video for “Thriller.” The trailer, two weeks out from its much-publicized “early access” April 22 previews, is (again) edited around its marquee character/leading man. Noting that the film is already tracking for a $55-$65 million opening weekend, the optimistic take is that its star performance is being treated as a “Hey, he’s actually pretty great!” surprise to bolster post-debut word of mouth. The pessimistic take is what I have long called (as far back as Batman Returns) a “quick kill blockbuster,” in which a much-hyped film opens huge, displeases the crowds or fails to convince anyone outside of the must-see-it-now fandom (think Fifty Shades of Grey) and drops off a cliff, while still qualifying as a big hit.

First, the top opening weekend for a music-specific biopic is not Fox’s Bohemian Rhapsody ($51 million in 2018), but Universal’s Straight Outta Compton ($60 million in 2015). Second, yes, I’m often the guy telling folks to cool their jets about an upcoming tentpole like The Force Awakens or Captain Marvel that *does* deliver best-case-scenario box office. In my defense, that from a lifetime spent rolling my eyes at over-the-moon predictions that led to the likes of Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, Pearl Harbor, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Madagascar, King Kong and Kung Fu Panda 2 being tagged as failures for objectively excellent or good-enough debuts even after they (in some cases) legged out. However, the constant declarations or predictions of Bohemian Rhapsody-sized global totals play like preemptive (intentional?) sabotage. Simply put, the (counting reshoots) reportedly $150-$200 million Michael need nottop $1 billion to be a success.