Well, s***. A Victory Tour for the efforts of one of pop culture’s mightiest icons yielded a robust $97 million domestic debut and $217 million worldwide. For Michael, it was always about breaking into stardom, and hence, this weekend reflected that.
In raw domestic grosses, it notched the largest opening weekend ever for any kind of biopic (American Sniper earned $89 million) and the biggest debut for any Lionsgate movie that isn’t a Twilight Saga sequel/Hunger Games movie. That means it’s the 22nd biggest opening for a non-sequel, and even higher if you discount any affiliations with major IPs. It opened moderately over expectations, and will still have pundits scratching their heads about how a non-white lead managed to usurp records. This is all withstanding the fact that critics have not been kind to its distribution, even though audiences adored it enough to grant it an A- from CinemaScore.
But it seems that critics from whichever ivory tower they sit in don’t seem to “get” that their commercial disservice by slandering the film is actually helping it. Yes, even this writer notes in our review that this film is more of a super-hype reel of Jackson’s more pertinent moments in his career. However, as we also noted like everyone else on their deathbeds, the exuberant music sequences, Jaafar Jackson’s committed performance, and the “for the fans” existence would still put butts in seats for another fascinating look at the King of Pop. The lack of Janet Jackson and the child molestation allegations didn’t need to be in the film; it was purely to create another sensation. And in that case, it works because Michael Jackson is a renowned name for decades and will remain so for decades to come. No one does music like Michael, and no one perfected his goals like him.
Going back to legs, it will probably finish its domestic run around $225-250 million, especially if it frontloads a la Straight Outta Compton. And thanks to Universal’s distribution input, it can safely make well over $450 million worldwide. May will point out how strong its legs are against the competition, or, if, like Michael, it doesn’t fear any of the competition, can ram more to $500 million worldwide. Dare we say it could moonwalk ever further?
In other news, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie earned $21.2 million this weekend, bringing its domestic cume to $386.4 million. It has already passed $831 million worldwide, so it’s easy to see that the pop icon has taken some of its legs off (though this can be argued, as it still remains in the fold because it caters more to a different subset of the family demographics). Whether it can climb to $1 billion remains to be seen, but it will not catch its predecessor (nor does it have to), and it will still yield more from the Nintendo universe (because it surely wants to).
Project Hail Mary has passed $600 million worldwide, which is excellent news for the Ryan Gosling feature. It will most likely pass F1‘s $634 million global cume. Lee Cronin’s The Mummy has only passed $65 million worldwide in its second weekend; it’s surely been a casual reminder that we’ve had enough of the beats, so this is only to be served on the sidelines for anyone wanting to witness. The Drama has passed $76 million worldwide; Zendaya isn’t quite on the level of a Sydney Sweeney in terms of draws, but she will still be praised nonetheless for trying.
Hoppers is going to finish its run at around $375-380 million worldwide, You, Me & Tuscany will make it to $25 million globally, and Mother Mary opened in a wider release with $1.23 million. And the other newcomer, Over Your Dead Body, opened with $1.495 million.
Next weekend will see the release of The Devil Wears Prada 2, Animal Farm, Deep Water, Hokum, One Spoon of Chocolate, and Casa Grande.
