The Michael Jackson fan-film, Michael, which curiously and legally side-steps any mention of the pedophilic troubles Jackson’s late career would become mired in, has just become the highest-grossing biopic ever. Per Deadline, the movie has amassed $911 million at the worldwide box office, eclipsing Bohemian Rhapsody as the biggest biopic ever. Much of that is from international receipts, which account for $533 millon. Domestically, the film has earned $358 million. When all is said and done, it’ll probably reach a billion dollars, joining the differently cursed Super Mario Galaxy Movie, the only 2026 movie to reach the milestone to date.
It’s fitting that the day another person facing allegations related to child sexual abuse becomes a trillionaire, Michael would find itself in rarefied air. But the news does lead us to recall the assessment of Leaving Neverland director Dan Reed, whose film is no longer available due to a “patently ridiculous” 30-year-old non-disparagement clause between HBO and Jackson and a massive push to rehabilitate the late pop star’s image. What does it mean that Jackson is still such a reliable moneymaker? “It says that people don’t care that he was a child molester. Literally, people just don’t care,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in April. “I think a lot of people just love his music and turn a deaf ear. And short of having actual video evidence of Michael Jackson engaged in sexual intercourse with a 7-year-old child, I don’t know what would be sufficient to change these people’s minds.
After seeing the movie, Reed became more convinced that the movie reinforced this angelic, childlike persona for Jackson that goes uninvestigated and taken for granted. That’s what audiences want. “To the culture, Jackson is like a religion. So, what I’ve done is essentially blasphemy, and this biopic reinstates the myth,” he said following the film’s release. “As absurd as any religion, people have to believe in the miracle of Jackson being this asexual, pure being who only wished good for little children and helped them.”
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