Michael’s Box Office Success Proves Audiences Only Want One Thing From Biopics – SlashFilm

What do moviegoers want from biopics these days? I think I know the answer, and I’m not entirely thrilled about it. “Michael,” the new Michael Jackson biopic starring Jackson’s own nephew, Jaafar Jackson, as the King of Pop, is a big box office success. But that success was slightly tainted, at least for fans, when “Michael” received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics. While the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer, which tracks critic grades, currently sits at a “Rotten” 38%, the Popcornmeter, which compiles audience reactions, is holding strong at an undeniably positive (or “Fresh,” to use the Rotten Tomatoes parlance) 97%.

Vocal fans of “Michael” point to this vast statistical canyon as proof that critics are out of touch, that people who write about movies got this one wrong, and that “Michael” is a film for the fans. (I feel the need here to note that film critics are fans; that’s why we devote our lives to watching and writing about movies.)

The consensus from critics isn’t so much that “Michael” is bad on a technical level, but rather that it’s so sanitized, so far removed from any whiff of controversy, that it feels weightless and almost pointless. As our own Witney Seibold wrote in his /Film review, “Why make a biopic of Michael Jackson if you’re going to let his life go unexamined? To paraphrase Socrates, an unexamined life is not worth making a movie about.”

Towards the latter half of his life, Michael Jackson was accused (but never convicted) of sexual abuse of minors. This alleged abuse was underscored in the gut-wrenching documentary “Leaving Neverland,” which has since been pulled from HBO. But those allegations are not mentioned in “Michael.” Indeed, the film ends in the late 1980s, long before the allegations and Jackson’s sudden death in 2009. To be fair, “Michael” originally did make mention of the allegations, but these scenes were removed and reshot due to legal issues.

For argument’s sake, let’s put the sexual abuse allegations aside. Jackson’s eccentricities were well-documented during his life, and seem like an essential part of his story. And even if you believe that Michael Jackson was 100% innocent of allegations levied against him, it’s still fair and accurate to say that he led a troubled life. Yes, he found fame and fortune. But by all accounts, Jackson and his brothers suffered from abuse by their demanding father, Joe (played by Colman Domingo in “Michael”), and that abuse greatly affected Jackson’s psychology for the rest of his life.

And yet, even this detail is only skimmed over in the film rather than given the emotional weight one might expect. Jackson’s addiction to painkillers is also touched on following the infamous incident when he was badly burned while filming a Pepsi commercial, but this is presented like a bit of trivia rather than a genuine dramatic issue Michael grappled with.

An honest biopic about Jackson’s life and its many ups and downs could be something great; a uniquely American epic about a poor, lonely Black kid who went on to hold the whole world in his sequined-gloved hand, only to watch it all slip away and end in tragedy. But the massive box office success of this fully authorized and highly watered-down look at Jackson seems to suggest once and for all that general audiences don’t really care about that stuff. 

What do people want from a biopic these days? More often than not, it seems like they want to see films play the hits and recreate famous moments. They want a distraction.

Of course, there are arguments to be made against this conclusion. Christopher Nolan’s biopic “Oppenheimer” was dark and apocalyptic — it ends with its subject haunted by the idea that all his hard scientific work will one day lead to the literal end of the world — and it was a smash hit at the box office. But examples like “Oppenheimer” feel more like the exception rather than the rule now. I’d wager most casual moviegoers didn’t think of “Oppenheimer” so much as a biopic as they did “a new Christopher Nolan movie.”

“Michael” cracked a code introduced with the absolutely dreadful Oscar-winning biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody.” That film also garnered poor reviews and was host to plenty of behind-the-scenes drama when now-disgraced director Bryan Singer was replaced by Dexter Fletcher (although Singer retains sole credit). “Bohemian Rhapsody” became something of a punchline due to the distractingly bad fake teeth Rami Malek wore to portray Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, and due to some laughable editing.

Yet, it was a huge box office hit. “Bohemian Rhapsody” doesn’t shy away from some of the heavier elements of its story. But when people think of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” they likely think of the film’s big, triumphant, feel-good climactic set piece, where Queen’s epic Live Aid performance was meticulously recreated for the big screen. That’s what stuck with people, and that seems to be what general moviegoers really want from their biopics.

The criticism against “Michael” heavily sanitizing the King of Pop’s life story is frequently shut-down online by fans who declare that they don’t care about any of the negative aspects — they just want to see a reasonable facsimile of MJ dance and sing on the big screen, just like they wanted to see Rami Malek do an impersonation of Freddie Mercury. “Bohemian Rhapsody” producer Graham King also produced “Michael,” and the lesson learned from the success of that previous film has likely been ported over here. Why bum everyone out with serious drama when you can simply give the audience a wax museum pop concert? “Michael” isn’t concerned with the ups and downs of Michael Jackson’s life — it just cares about the ups. “Michael” looks to “Bohemian Rhapsody” for inspiration and asks, “What if we just made the entire movie that climactic Live Aid performance?”

The results speak for themselves. “Michael” keeps packing in audiences ready to get up in front of the screen to mimic Jackson’s dance moves while the movie is playing. This is what the people want. They don’t want a nuanced story, or controversy, or even the inescapable specter of mortality (“Michael” ends long before Jackson’s death and throws the title card “His Story Continues…” up on the screen as if this was a Marvel movie promising more adventures to come).

I love a feel-good story, but I also believe we should expect more from the art and entertainment we consume. We shouldn’t have to settle for slop. But I also recognize that I’m a film nerd, whereas the majority of the audiences packing theaters for “Michael” are casual filmgoers looking for a good time. There are other takes on Jackson’s life that aren’t afraid to shy away from the controversies — I recommend Margo Jefferson’s book “On Michael Jackson” and the podcast “Think Twice: Michael Jackson” as two worthwhile examples.

But a part of me can’t help but cringe at the lesson Hollywood is going to take away from the wild success of “Michael.” Recently, The Boss got the biopic treatment with “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere.” I won’t claim that was a great movie (it wasn’t), but I was surprised when it ended up being a box office flop. That film was the complete opposite of “Michael” — a brooding character study of a artist having an emotional breakdown as he shunned his arena rock star image to create a darker, more personal album. When it comes to biopics, audiences seem completely uninterested in anything even slightly unpleasant like that. They just want to dance.