Director Antoine Fuqua’s Michael Jackson biopic Michael has humiliated woke critics by becoming a domestic and worldwide box office smash.
This jukebox musical, which traces Jackson’s rise from a child star with the Jackson 5 to the undisputed 29-year-old King of Pop in 1988, grossed a remarkable $97 million domestic over its debut weekend. Overseas, Michael grossed another $120 million, which brings its global total, over only three days, to $217 million.
Michael’s $97 million domestic debut not only broke the record for first weekend gross of a musical biopic, but it also humiliated the previous record-holder, 2015’s Straight Outta Compton, which opened to $60 million.
The all-time record holder worldwide for a musical biopic is Bohemian Rhapsody’s incredible $911 million in 2018. Michael will definitely top Bohemian Rhapsody’s $217 million domestic take. It has a long way to go to match that overseas gross of $694 million.
The best news is that Normal People, in the form of Michael Jackson fans, humiliated the virtue-signaling scolds who infest today’s movie criticism.
Even though Michael Jackson was never convicted of any wrongdoing…
Even though the allegations against Michael Jackson are sketchy as hell…
Even though Michael ends five years before the first 1993 allegation (where two grand juries over 18 months chose not to indict)…
The movie was still serially trashed by reviewers for not portraying Jackson as a child rapist. This was yet another gross display of arrogant reviewers refusing to meet a movie on its own terms. Instead, these puffed-up groupthinkers used the movie to pose as “the good people” by demanding Michael be about what they wanted it to be about. The result…?
A brutal 38 percent rotten rating.
Why should a Michael Jackson biopic be required to portray the negative? When did this become a law?
Why should the fans be punished?
Why must moviegoers always be slapped in the face with the negative?
Why must we pay the price with a downer movie due to someone else’s perceived sins?
Sorry, but movies aren’t about The Truth. Movies have never been about The Truth. Movies are art where the subject (in this case Michael Jackson) is used by the filmmakers to communicate the message they want to send. In this case, Fuqua and his screenwriter John Logan chose to focus on Jackson’s genius, talent, ambition, and how he overcame incredible odds to become a 20th-century icon.
There’s all kinds of material out there focused on the abuse allegations against Jackson, so what’s wrong with focusing on triumph and aspiration? What’s wrong with giving fans the best of Michael Jackson instead of slapping them across the face and scolding them for being a fan of such a terrible person?
If you want to define Michael Jackson by the allegations, make your own movie.
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