The Berlin world premiere of Michael—the new Antoine Fuqua-directed biopic starring Michael Jackson’s nephew Jaafaar in the title role—saw thousands of King of Pop fans gather outside the theater, rapturous applause after each of the movie’s musical numbers, and fawning praise over the lead performance. Left out of the celebratory film and tightly controlled red carpet rollout was any mention of the sexual abuse accusations that complicate his legacy. Yet producer Graham King admitted to being “nervous and anxious” to see the film with audiences for the first time.
“A lot has happened on this film that I question how, why,” said King, who also produced the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. “I used to say Freddie Mercury was throwing hurdles down at me. Michael did the same. So Michael and Freddie are up there together laughing right now.”
With an initial $150 million budget, Michael was already the most ambitious biopic of all time when it wrapped initial production in May 2024. That was before the estate’s executors learned of a clause in a 1994 settlement with one of Jackson’s child molestation accusers agreeing to never dramatize their story on screen, rendering a significant amount of footage useless. Instead of a 3.5-hour epic, Lionsgate and the filmmakers decided to end the movie in the late 1980s at the height of Jackson’s career following Thriller and Bad—and the estate agreed to fund 22 days of additional production at a cost Forbes estimates to be more than $25 million (some reports put it at as much as $50 million).
Now Michael needs to gross more than $500 million globally to be profitable—a mark only ever reached by one other movie in the genre, Bohemian Rhapsody—and Lionsgate is reportedly hoping for more than $700 million (including downstream revenue from streaming etc.) in order to greenlight a sequel, which would cover the second half of Jackson’s life using some of the existing footage. As a co-investor in the movie, the Jackson estate could be on the hook for millions if it doesn’t break even, but as an equity partner is also in position to earn more if Michael turns into a Bohemian-sized blockbuster (passing $900 million globally in 2018). In addition to an estimated $10 million the estate earned up front for co-producing and licensing the music, its estimated 25% profit participation could return more than $40 million on top of the initial investment, in the best case scenario. That’s not including expected sales bumps to Jackson’s music catalog, a Cirque du Soleil show based on his life in Las Vegas, stage musicals on Broadway and across the world, and other ancillary businesses that earned the estate an estimated $105 million in 2025. As a result, the 2026 total will likely be much higher.
Box office analysts are optimistic about Michael, perhaps even more so in its new controversy-free and music-focused form. It’s projected to earn more than $65 million domestically in its opening weekend, topping Bohemian Rhapsody ($51 million) and 2015’s Straight Outta Compton ($60 million) for the most ever by a music biopic (not adjusted for inflation). That suggests a cumulative total of potentially more than $200 million in North America alone.
The Jackson estate has already seen once the effect a hit movie can have on its fortunes. At the time of his death in June 2009 from a lethal injection, the 50-year-old King of Pop was on the brink of financial peril, with at least $450 million in debt—including $40 million to concert promoter AEG Live in advances and costs for a tour he could no longer execute—and a reputation mired by controversy and legal troubles.
“He had extremely valuable assets, but he was hemorrhaging cash,” says L. Londell McMillan, an attorney who worked with Jackson from 2005 until his death. “Had we not refinanced and restructured those loans, he could’ve lost it all.”
Shortly after his death, a small team that included the co-executor of Jackson’s estate, John Branca, his manager Frank DiLeo, accountant Michael Kane, and then-AEG Live CEO Randy Phillips gathered to discuss how to “make as much money from whatever [assets the estate] had,” according to court documents. They hatched an idea to make a documentary out of the concert rehearsal footage as he prepared for a new tour shortly before his death, and in October 2009 Michael Jackson’s This Is It rode a wave of posthumous love and support to more than $265 million at the global box office and an additional $100 million-plus in DVDs, soundtrack and merchandise sales. The estimated $200 million earned by the estate on the film not only saved its financial future, it kickstarted the most lucrative stretch of Jackson’s career.
True to his original promise, Branca has maximized profits by selling off the considerable assets Jackson accumulated during his life—including his Neverland ranch to billionaire Ron Burkle in 2020 for $22 million, the 4,000-song ATV catalog to Sony Music in 2016 for $750 million, and half of Jackson’s own music rights to Sony in 2024 for $600 million—and by commercially exploiting his enduring popularity across many different mediums, including new albums of unreleased music, touring shows, stage productions, and now a major Hollywood biopic. Since Jackson’s death, Forbes estimates the estate has earned more than $3.5 billion, achieving the No. 1 spot on our annual list of highest-paid dead celebrities in 13 of the last 16 years.
Much of that money has gone to taxes, paying off Jackson’s debts, and dealing with near-constant legal challenges, beginning with the validity of Jackson’s 2002 will naming Branca and music executive John McClain as co-executors and co-trustees of the estate, and leaving 20% of his fortune to charity with the rest split between his mother and three children, cutting out other family members. Even the beneficiaries have brought complaints. In 2024, Jackson’s mother, Katherine, fought the sale of his music catalog in court, unsuccessfully, and his daughter, Paris, currently has an ongoing lawsuit against the executors over how much they spent on the movie, an investment she called “highly speculative and risky.” She claims they have enriched themselves with nearly $150 million in compensation and used their status as producers to cast movie stars to play them in the film. (Miles Teller plays Branca in Michael). The executors counter by saying Paris has “a complete lack of understanding about how the motion picture industry works” and cite $65 million in benefits already paid out to her—a figure she denies.
The Man Behind The Man In The Mirror: John Branca has guided the Michael Jackson estate from the brink of financial peril into becoming a $100-million-per-year machine.
Andreas Rentz/Universal Pictures/Getty Images
While Jackson’s other two children, Bigi and Prince, appeared at the Michael premiere in support of the film, Paris has continued to oppose it publicly. “The thing about these biopics is, it’s Hollywood. It’s fantasyland. It’s not real. But it’s sold to you as real,” she posted on Instagram in September. “The narrative is being controlled. And there’s a lot of inaccuracy, and there’s a lot of just full-blown lies. At the end of the day, that doesn’t really fly with me.”
In the past decade, more than a dozen artists have brought their stories to the big screen, including Elvis, Elton John, Bob Marley and Bob Dylan. These movies don’t always lead to massive paydays, as the standard deal for an artist is believed to be in the $1-3 million range up front and 5-10% of back-end net profits. In the modest success of $100-300 million globally, movie earnings for artists are likely in the single digital millions. But it is still a valuable brand-building exercise.
“It definitely makes a long-term difference,” says Tim Hegarty, head of M&A at Cutting Edge Group, owner of one of the biggest catalogs of movie music in the world. “If you have any film that takes more than a hundred million dollars at the box office, that is a sustainable new income stream you can rely on for a long time.”
In 2019, the Jackson estate struck a deal with King to co-produce its movie, hoping to replicate the outlier success he had with Bohemian Rhapsody. That movie had also sidestepped aspects of Mercury’s life—most notably his sexuality—in favor of extended concert scenes celebrating Queen’s music. It was a strategy that worked particularly well overseas, where the movie made nearly $700 million of its $900 million total.
Similarly, the This Is It concert film earned $195 million of its $268 million total internationally—which explains why, not coincidentally, the estate negotiated for a larger share of international royalties on the remaining half of the Jackson music it owns during its catalog sale in 2024, which could see the biggest bump from Michael.
“Music is the international language,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “And international is where they get that ROI.”
For surviving Queen band members and the Mercury estate, profit participation in the movie (which had a reported production budget of just $55 million) and its marketing bump across other businesses was transformational. According to U.K. public filings, the band’s holding company saw revenue increase from roughly $24 million in 2017 before the movie’s release to $94 million in 2019, and it paid dividends to band members of more than $85 million across the next four years. Revenue remained at an elevated rate when the band sold its catalog and publishing in 2024 to Sony Music for more than $1.2 billion.
“The ultimate boom case is that you’ve made them so culturally relevant again that it has a long-standing effect on the revenue rather than a spike,” says Hegarty. “You’ve actually created a cultural moment for a new generation.”
And appealing to fans who were born after Jackson’s death might lead to both box office success and ensuring that the $100 million-per-year business thrives for years to come. “If you can crack the code on how to get Gen Z excited about these musical artists, that’s really key,” says Dergarabedian. “This is like a two-hour infomercial for everything Michael Jackson.”
More from Forbes
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattcraig/2026/04/23/michael-jackson-movie-estate/
