‘Michael’ Is Pulling Off A Box Office Miracle In Japan, And The Numbers Are Staggering
The Michael Jackson biopic ‘Michael’ has already rewritten music biopic history this year, and now the film is facing its biggest test yet in one of the most important markets for any Jackson related release. Directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by John Logan, the story follows the King of Pop from his early days with the Jackson 5 through his solo years on the Bad World Tour in the late 1980s. Jaafar Jackson, who is Michael’s own nephew and the son of Jermaine Jackson, stars in the title role.
Before the film ever touched a Japanese screen, it had already become a phenomenon. Michael Jackson’s biopic dethroned ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ to become the highest grossing music biopic of all time, crossing $911.9 million worldwide. It also surpassed ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’s’ total gross with $358.6 million at the domestic box office and $553.3 million internationally, and that success came despite reports that the production underwent roughly $50 million in reshoots after issues with the screenplay were discovered.
Japan is being treated as the market that could finally push ‘Michael’ over the billion dollar line. Crossing that threshold would make it only the second film to reach $1 billion at the 2026 global box office, after Universal’s Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and Lionsgate partnered with the distributor Kino for the Japanese release. The film opened with an estimated $2.3 million on its first Friday, marking the second largest Hollywood opening day of the year in the country, beaten only by ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’.
That momentum hasn’t faded. By its fourth day in Japanese theaters, the film added an estimated $1.6 million on Monday, only a 33 percent drop from Sunday, pushing its local running total to roughly $9 million according to box office analyst Luiz Fernando.
Word of mouth has held just as strong, staying at a 4.2 star audience score throughout the weekend and into the new week. That figure lines up closely with the 4.2 star audience word of mouth score that Bohemian Rhapsody carried during its own launch in Japan, a parallel that points toward genuine staying power rather than a front loaded opening that fades fast.
History suggests Japan rewards Jackson related films that hold like this. When the concert film This Is It released in 2011, Japan alone contributed $57 million of its $196 million total foreign gross, and Bohemian Rhapsody ultimately built a lifetime cume of $114 million in the country. Analysts had projected a three day opening weekend in Japan between $6.5 million and $8 million for Michael, which would comfortably top both Bohemian Rhapsody’s $4.3 million opening and This Is It’s $5.7 million debut.
With the film already past $9 million days into its run, those early projections may end up looking conservative. Deadline has reported that this single territory alone could be enough to carry the film into the billion dollar club, a milestone that would cement Jaafar Jackson’s performance and Antoine Fuqua’s direction as part of one of the biggest box office stories of the year.
If ‘Michael’ keeps this kind of hold through its second weekend, the King of Pop’s legacy could end up powering one of the rare long running theatrical successes that biopics almost never get in Japan. Do you think ‘Michael’ is actually on track to cross a billion dollars worldwide once its full Japanese run plays out?
