June 14: Michael Jackson biopic $932.2M overtakes Bohemian Rhapsody’s $911M

Michael Jackson’s biopic Michael has edged past Freddie Mercury’s Bohemian Rhapsody to become the top-grossing musician biopic of all time, and the numbers are now close enough to feel like a live scoreboard. As of Sunday (June 14), Michael has grossed $932.2 million worldwide, while Bohemian Rhapsody has grossed $911 million. That is a lead of $21.2 million, which sounds big until you remember global box office can swing with the next territory, release window, and staying power.

The real story is how international audiences are driving the gap. According to Box Office Mojo figures cited by Billboard, international ticket sales account for 61.1% of Michael’s worldwide box office total to date. The remainder comes from the U.S. and Canada. By comparison, international ticket sales account for 76.2% of Bohemian Rhapsody’s worldwide box office total. Put plainly: Michael is winning overall on more than just overseas momentum, but Bohemian Rhapsody has leaned even harder on international pull. If you run a slate, those share differences are the kind of detail that can change funding decisions, marketing spend, and distribution strategy.

There is also an important ceiling to this victory. Michael still has a ways to go to become the top-grossing biopic (not just the top-grossing musician biopic) of all time. Billboard points to Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s 2023 biopic of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, which has grossed $975.8 million worldwide. So the race is not only between two music legends. It is between a “category king” and the all-comers benchmark for biopics. Michael’s progress implies it is narrowing that broader gap, but the current standings still leave daylight versus Oppenheimer’s $975.8 million.

Billboard also frames this as part of a longer pattern: Jackson has a long history of ranking No. 1 on lists. The piece goes back to The Jackson 5 landing their first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with “I Want You Back” in January 1970. That historical reference is not filler. It underlines why the market keeps paying for musician biographies: the brand durability of the artist, not just the film itself. In other words, the economics are tied to an audience that is already primed. In the business, that is what investors mean when they talk about “built-in” demand.

And there is real cross-pollination behind the headlines. Billboard notes that Jackson and Mercury have much in common: both rose to fame in groups, The Jackson 5 and Queen, respectively. Both are widely seen as two of the greatest showmen of all time. Both died years before their time. Mercury died in 1991 at age 45 of complications from AIDS. Jackson died in 2009 at age 50 of cardiac arrest caused by acute propofol intoxication. Beyond the tragic symmetry, Billboard reports they crossed paths in the early 1980s, when Jackson attended Queen concerts in Los Angeles. They occasionally met for dinner and even recorded three demo tracks together that went unfinished.

The business logic extends beyond the movies into live theater. Billboard adds that there were successful theatrical productions based on both artists’ music. The Queen musical We Will Rock You opened on London’s West End in 2002. MJ: The Musical has been a fixture on Broadway since Dec. 6, 2021. For executives and boards, that matters because it signals a flywheel effect: stage success can reinforce audience familiarity, while film success can refresh mainstream interest. These are not separate markets. They can feed each other, increasing the odds that a property has multiple monetization paths.

Billboard also ties the film outcomes to specific production leadership. Graham King co-produced Michael with longtime Jackson associates John Branca and John McClain (who died on May 26 at age 71). King also co-produced Bohemian Rhapsody and a third music biopic on Billboard’s list of music biopics, Jersey Boys, the story of the Four Seasons. When a producer has multiple hits in the same genre, boards and capital allocators pay attention to repeatable processes, not just luck. It is the difference between “a great movie happened” and “a system is working.”

Finally, Billboard provides the broader frame: here is the list of the 25 biopics of music stars with the highest worldwide grosses, and the outlet says it didn’t include a few high-grossing films about real-life music personalities because the subjects are not well-known music stars in their own right. Examples it gives include The Sound of Music, Green Book, Florence Foster Jenkins, and Music of the Heart. It also notes Meryl Streep starred in the latter two films. For decision-makers, the selection rule is a reminder: the market is not rewarding “music in the plot.” It rewards star power that already exists in culture, with enough name recognition to translate into tickets.

Strategically, Michael’s rise to $932.2 million as of June 14 is a signal to peers that the music biopic category is still capable of runway at scale, but the winner is defined by global box office mix, not just absolute totals. The narrowing gap to Oppenheimer’s $975.8 million raises the stakes for next projects: if a musician story can keep expanding internationally while retaining audience loyalty at home, it can compete not only within its genre but against the biopic heavyweights overall.