"Michael", a biopic about Michael Jackson, is officially happening.

[MJJuniorSinceMW]

Oh, so many things to unpack here.. MJ & Box Office..

Just some random bullet points which come to my mind, reading this thread (also some points might seem to contradict each other):
- Box Office at the moment is not what it once was. Once, meaning pre pandemic, pre writer/actor strike.
- Over 40 of the billion dollar club movies (54) came AFTER 2010. A billion means not what it once meant in the 90's & 00's.
- Of course it would be huge if MICHAEL makes 600 million, that'd be my personal threshold to call it an honest financial success. You need to take the budget into account. That's where Bohemian shined, with 900 mill. against a 50 million budget.
- Financials are not everything, a quality movie, good story, loved by the audience & hopefully critics (though f*** them, really..) is more important
- of course with MICHAEL they aim for audience, critical AND financial success.

I will post more thoughts later on..

 

[filmandmusic]

I don’t understand why the box office is the way to go. I think it would be more sensible to rank the most successful film based on ticket sales instead of gross. It is the same for music, thriller isn’t the biggest album of all time because it made the most money, it is because it sold the most records.

 

[Annita]

We will see, all I know is that reaching 1 billion happens rarely and if it happens it is for superhero films or IP’s so that certainly diminishes MJ’s chances.

But Michael is a superhero

 

[filmandmusic]

But Michael is a superhero

When I was a kid he certainly was my superhero and not Batman!

 

[Hot_Street]

Do you think the character of Peter Pan should play a role in the film?

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

thriller isn’t the biggest album of all time because it made the most money, it is because it sold the most records.

And how does a movie break records precisely? Take a wild guess.

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

Do you think the character of Peter Pan should play a role in the film?

Yea

 

[SmoothGangsta]

Honestly if the buzz continues the way it has been then this film will be very successful. I'm not gonna speculate or pretend to know numbers etc but the reaction from critics to the trailer and the massive social media buzz whenever they release a picture says to me that people are very excited about this movie.

 

[knigofpop]

I don’t understand why the box office is the way to go. I think it would be more sensible to rank the most successful film based on ticket sales instead of gross. It is the same for music, thriller isn’t the biggest album of all time because it made the most money, it is because it sold the most records.

Completely agree! The Eras tour is often ranked against This Is It with Taylor coming out on top financially however, admission to the Eras screening was premium priced (3 times the price of regular tickets). Attendance figures would be a much better measure of success.

 

[FMJP]

Yea

Actually it would be cool if we see MJ interacting with classic disney characters like Peter Pan or Dumbo in this way when he's at Neverland or alone to show his isolation and disconnect from reality.

 

[filmandmusic]

Actually it would be cool if we see MJ interacting with classic disney characters like Peter Pan or Dumbo in this way when he's at Neverland or alone to show his isolation and disconnect from reality.

Yes I always wanted this movie to have light fantasy elements, touched upon this last year in early posts about the biopic, the worst thing they could do is make it a dry biopic like most of the others. Michael was magical not just on stage but also in his mind and that should be brought forward in the film.

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

Actually it would be cool if we see MJ interacting with classic disney characters like Peter Pan or Dumbo in this way when he's at Neverland or alone to show his isolation and disconnect from reality.

I personally don't like the idea of MJ seeing fictional characters like that but, I can imagine how it might be done.

A bit relating to E.T. with Someone in the Dark would be pretty amazing though. It does so happen to be a Universal Pictures Distribution....

 

[zinniabooklover]

Actually it would be cool if we see MJ interacting with classic disney characters like Peter Pan or Dumbo in this way when he's at Neverland or alone to show his isolation and disconnect from reality.

ooh, I can see this in my mind.

 

[filmandmusic]

A bit relating to E.T. with Someone in the Dark would be pretty amazing though. It does so happen to be a Universal Pictures Distribution....

I thought about this exact thing too but I didn’t want to post it because I always seem to talk about SITD (aka the greatest song of all time)

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

I thought about this exact thing too but I didn’t want to post it because I always seem to talk about SITD (aka the greatest song of all time)

And you still think this won't make a Michaellion dollars??

 

[filmandmusic]

And you still think this won't make a Michaellion dollars??

No I expect 500 million

 

[Billie Jean 78]

No I expect 500 million

It's ok to keep expectations low in the comunity and it's good to keep them high in the studio.
Let us keep in mind that it was unforeseen for a concert rehearsal to make it an international success, let alone for it to make $380M at the box office... until it happened with Michael. Now, I am of course aware that many things have happened since then, but it's still Michael we're talking about. With the right publicity everybody's grandmother will go to the cinema with husband, children and grandchildren!!

 

[filmandmusic]

It's ok to keep expectations low in the comunity and it's good to keep them high in the studio.
Let us keep in mind that it was unforeseen for a concert rehearsal to make it an international success, let alone for it to make $380M at the box office... until it happened with Michael. Now, I am of course aware that many things have happened since then, but it's still Michael we're talking about. With the right publicity everybody's grandmother will go to the cinema with husband, children and grandchildren!!

This Is It made about 280 million dollar which I find fairly low considering the hype surrounding MJ in the months after his passing. I think it was a financial success but I expected more. My local cinema which has new movies for just 2 weeks had about 15 people attending the film Including me and 3 friends who at a stretch could be called casual fans. The movie only reinforced the opinion that they had that MJ was really weird and kind of crazy. To be fair I can’t blame them, we only got a glimpse of his former genius on This Is It. The only time they went silent was during Human Nature.
My 500 million estimate is massive and depending on the budget it is either a success or a gigantic success. I would be stoked if it made 500 million.

 

[Billie Jean 78]

This Is It made about 280 million dollar which I find fairly low considering the hype surrounding MJ in the months after his passing. I think it was a financial success but I expected more. My local cinema which has new movies for just 2 weeks had about 15 people attending the film Including me and 3 friends who at a stretch could be called casual fans. The movie only reinforced the opinion that they had that MJ was really weird and kind of crazy. To be fair I can’t blame them, we only got a glimpse of his former genius on This Is It. The only time they went silent was during Human Nature.
My 500 million estimate is massive and depending on the budget it is either a success or a gigantic success. I would be stoked if it made 500 million.

I cannot agree with this as my experience was quite different. I live in a very small country (population = 2M only) and Michael was never really popular here. The cinema was pretty much full and at the end of the movie everybody aplauded - I had never seen such a reaction before.

That being said, the $380M was a recalculation including the inflation from 2009 to 2024.

 

[filmandmusic]

I cannot agree with this as my experience was quite different. I live in a very small country (population = 2M only) and Michael was never really popular here. The cinema was pretty much full and at the end of the movie everybody aplauded - I had never seen such a reaction before.

That being said, the $380M was a recalculation including the inflation from 2009 to 2024.

2m! Let me think which one could it be

 

[Billie Jean 78]

2m! Let me think which one could it be

No need to think, a look will be enough.

 

[zinniabooklover]

@MJInnocentUK

"The upcoming #MJBiopic producer Graham King discusses his partnership with Japanese film distribution company Kino Films and why his favourite MJ tour was BAD in Yokohama."

#MichaelMovie

https://twitter.com/x/status/1813898531524219305

 

[filmandmusic]

No need to think, a look will be enough.

Ah Slovenia the country boxed in by Croatia, Italy, Austria and Hungary

 

[etoile 37]

This Is It made about 280 million dollar which I find fairly low considering the hype surrounding MJ in the months after his passing. I think it was a financial success but I expected more.

A lot of fans didn't go to see This Is It. For some his death was still too painful so they either didn't want to see it at all or preferred to watch it alone at home. Others boycotted it because they were blaming Sony and AEG for Michael's death.

 

[Annita]

TII had a limited 2 week cinema-run and it was the most succsesful "concert-film" . The TII-video-release is the most selling music-video-film ever.

 

[Blues_Away2023]

I went to see TII twice on opening day/night in my local cinema, I had booked tickets for the evening showing as I expected it to be busy but both shows were pretty empty.

Felt a bit silly and disappointed

 

[SmoothGangsta]

When I went to see it people whood when MJ was revealed after the intro montage lol.

Pretty positive energy.

 

[SoCav]

This Is It made about 280 million dollar which I find fairly low considering the hype surrounding MJ in the months after his passing. I think it was a financial success but I expected more. My local cinema which has new movies for just 2 weeks had about 15 people attending the film Including me and 3 friends who at a stretch could be called casual fans. The movie only reinforced the opinion that they had that MJ was really weird and kind of crazy. To be fair I can’t blame them, we only got a glimpse of his former genius on This Is It. The only time they went silent was during Human Nature.
My 500 million estimate is massive and depending on the budget it is either a success or a gigantic success. I would be stoked if it made 500 million.

Low? It shattered the records for concert films, becoming the highest grossing by a wide, wide margin. I really think your personal experience at the cinema might be coloring your judgment here. When you look purely at the facts, This Is It was a massive commercial and critical success. The people you were at the cinema with may have walked away from it thinking MJ was weird and crazy, but that definitely was not the consensus. When you look at reviews from the time, you see near-universal praise for his involvement in every detail of the show, his kind nature, and his ever-present talent (things we all knew as fans, but after years of negative press there were many people who never knew that or had forgotten).

Whatever your thoughts about the film, I think it did a ton of good for his reputation back then.

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

A lot of fans didn't go to see This Is It. For some his death was still too painful so they either didn't want to see it at all or preferred to watch it alone at home. Others boycotted it because they were blaming Sony and AEG for Michael's death.

Yeah, the MJ Estate was immediately receiving contentious responses from many fans. A shame as that was easily their best project to date. They really should have let it simmer, allowed more eyes on it, and just let the hype play out more. Maybe delay the soundtrack proper for 2010. And then in another 2 years, looked at a posthumous album with more consideration. The rushing early on set them far back.

I digress though, this is pretty off topic.

 

[Rockin R]

I went to see this is it 10 times at the cinema.

There were only two shows that were not as full: the very first showing of my local cinema and one that I went to see a very early screening just cause.

All the others were full at its most. It was emotional. I went to see the Off the wall docu at a cinema too, luckily that one got screened at my country. The Bad 25th one did not.