EXCLUSIVE: Lionsgate‘s highest-grossing movie in its history is even more so as expected: the Michael Jackson biopic Michael is crossing $900 million at the worldwide box office, we hear. The film is within $11M of overtaking Michael producer Graham King’s previous top-grossing movie, Bohemian Rhapsody ($911M WW). Once that happens, Michael will be the highest-grossing musical biopic ever.
Universal has the license on overseas theatrical as you well know, with the pic well north of $544.8M internationally and with a running domestic cume of $355.2M. Lionsgate has Russia via Volga, where the pic has grossed $10M.
The movie opens through Kino, in partnership with Lionsgate, this Friday where Michael will give a new definition to easing on the road, with a potential shot at $1 billion. Michael before global P&A spend cost $200M-plus.
Currently in its seventh week of release, Michael’s top-grossing territories are as follows, the movie having beaten Bohemian Rhapsody in many of them: UK ($68M), France ($54.3M), Germany ($34.4M), Brazil ($32.2M), Mexico ($31.4M), Australia ($30.7M), Italy ($29.1M), Spain ($26.1M), Colombia ($14.3M), Netherlands ($14M), Korea ($11.2M), China ($10.3M), Russia ($10M), UAE ($9.7M), Peru ($9.6M), India ($8.3M), Switzerland ($8M) and Belgium ($7.4M).