Michael just joined the billion-dollar club.
The Michael Jackson biopic has now earned $629.8 million abroad and $371.8 million in the U.S. and Canada, bringing its box office total to $1.001 billion worldwide, Rentrak reported Sunday.
“It was indeed beyond anyone’s wildest expectations back in late April when the film was released in theaters, that Michael would have a shot at hitting a billion dollars in box office worldwide,” Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Rentrak, told Urban Hollywood 411.
Adding to the film’s achievements, it is the highest-grossing musical biopic after moonwalking past the $911 million worldwide Bohemian Rhapsody made in 2018. It’s also the biggest film ever based on a real person, after overtaking the $975 million Oppenheimer earned in 2023.
Related: Michael Jackson’s Son Prince Says Critics Wanted ‘Michael’ to Flop
If those wins weren’t enough, Michael is now one of the two top-grossing movies of 2026.
“To put this into context, the only other movie that earned over a billion dollars worldwide this year at this point is The Super Mario Galaxy Movie placing Michael in very rarefied air in terms of box office achievements,” Dergarabedian added.
Michael arrived in theaters on April 24. The authorized biopic from director Antoine Fuqua and producer Graham King stars Jackson’s nephew, Jaafar Jackson, in the title role. Colman Domingo and Nia Long co-star as the late music legend’s parents Joe and Katherine Jackson.
The cast also includes Miles Teller as the singer-songwriter’s business manager John Branca, Kendrick Sampson as producer Quincy Jones, Larenz Tate as Motown founder Berry Gordy, Laura Harrier as music executive Suzanne de Passe, and Juliano Valdi portrays a young Michael Jackson.
The story begins in the 1960s and traces the music icon’s journey from a child performer in Gary, Indiana with the Jackson 5, to becoming the biggest entertainer in the world. The film concludes with Jackson’s Bad World Tour in the late 1980s, leaving the door open for a sequel.
While fans embraced the film, critics bashed it for leaving out the most controversial aspects of Jackson’s life. The biopic has a 38% score on Rotten Tomatoes from 298 reviews on the website.
The New York Times described the biopic as “flat and barely human.” While the Houston Chronicle called it “a concoction of ultimately empty calories.”
Still, the team behind Michael has more than a billion reasons to celebrate.
The sequel is already in the works and will focus on the King of Pop’s “most popular” songs, Lionsgate film chief Adam Fogelson said during a quarterly earnings call in May.
“We are really excited about the progress we’re making with respect to a second Michael film,” Fogelson shared. “All the conversations that we’ve been having with all of the appropriate parties continue to go exceptionally well.”
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