As adult audiences for non-spectacle theatrical releases have waned post-Covid, one subgenre has survived long enough to feel like a franchise unto itself: the pop musician biopic. Not every new entry is a Bohemian Rhapsody-level smash; some, like the dreary Amy Winehouse biography Back to Black or the misbegotten Whitney Houston movie I Wanna Dance With Somebody, outright flop. But there are still enough success stories like A Complete Unknown ($140m worldwide, eight Oscar nominations) to assure every pantheon pop artist in America will probably receive this treatment eventually.
“Eventually” has become the operative word for Michael, a biopic of the globally revered but controversial pop star Michael Jackson. The film from Antoine Fuqua was supposed to have been released by now; it was originally set to come out in April 2025. After an initial delay to October of this year, it’s now looking likely to shift to sometime in 2026, not least because it has scheduled 22 days of additional shooting in June. Two months after its intended release, it’s going back in front of cameras for nearly enough time to shoot an entirely separate film.
