The likes of “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Elvis,” along with the likes of “Ray” and “Walk the Line,” have taught us to believe musical biopics and films about famous musicians in general will be big Oscar players no matter what – even if most viewers, other than Academy voters, outright hate them. As such, no matter what the reviews, backlash, and outright mockery for “Michael” might be, it is too easy to say that the Academy will embrace it anyway, just because it is a musical biopic.
However, if that was always the case, the likes of “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere,” “Bob Marley: One Love,” and “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody” would have cleaned up at the Oscars in recent years, too. That alone proves musical biopics don’t always become Oscar darlings. Still, none of them were the kind of box office hits “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Elvis” were – and that is one thing “Michael” is certain to become, no matter what anyone says about it.
Are musical biopics that are also box office smashes always guaranteed to do well at the Oscars? To be fair, “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Elvis” have helped throw off the typical box-office standard for musical biopics, which has also helped them defy the usual standards for reviews of Best Picture nominees. Therefore, if “Michael” is on par with “Elvis” in terms of box office, and if not quite at the $900+ million worldwide box office level of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” that alone would also make it an Oscar factor on some level, if history means anything.
But what of the other highest-grossing musical biopics, and their more mixed level of success as awards films? And why did they succeed or fail at the Oscars in ways that “Michael” may or may not match down the line?
After “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Elvis,” the next-highest-grossing musical biopic to date was 2015’s “Straight Outta Compton,” which grossed over $160 million in America and just over $200 million worldwide. With that kind of runaway success and its reviews considerably better than those for “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Elvis,” it stands out as the biggest outlier to date among musical biopics and the Oscars.
Unlike “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Elvis,” “Ray,” “Walk the Line,” “A Complete Unknown,” and lesser grossing biopics like “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “Judy,” and to an extent “Funny Girl” and “Amadeus,” “Straight Outta Compton” didn’t have a single Oscar nominated or winning performance, and only had a single nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. But there were some mitigating circumstances in 2015, as it was the year African-American-centered movies across the board were snubbed enough to inspire the famed #OscarsSoWhite hashtag.
In addition, since only eight movies made the Best Picture field in 2015, it is easy to speculate that “Straight Outta Compton” could have made the cut if there had been a locked field of 10 that year. Then again, “Bohemian Rhapsody” made the Best Picture field of eight in 2018, although its box office was far bigger, and that year’s bubble field was one of the most infamously weak in this era.
With a larger field of 10 guaranteed this year, and with “Michael” all but certain to top “Straight Outta Compton’s” domestic and worldwide box office, will that guarantee more attention from the Oscars? If it doesn’t, it would actually fit a weird pattern, given that both “Straight Outta Compton” and “Michael” have their lead characters played by actual relatives of the real singers they are playing. O’Shea Jackson wasn’t recognized for playing his actual father, Ice Cube, yet “Straight Outta Compton” was more of an ensemble film about the rap group N.W.A. and those around it, whereas “Michael” is set to give Jaafar Jackson a much larger personal showcase as he impersonates his uncle Michael.
The next highest-grossing musical biopic of all time also had that kind of one-man showcase at the center, yet the Academy still ignored it anyway. “Rocketman” was released mere months after “Bohemian Rhapsody” in early summer 2019, and perhaps looked smaller and easier to brush off by comparison, with its mere $96+ million domestic gross and $190 million worldwide gross. Thanks in part to that, its far superior review scores and Taron Egerton’s widely praised turn as Elton John didn’t matter to the Academy, whether due to a crowded Best Picture and Best Actor field in 2019 or, for once, burnout from musical biopics.
“Rocketman” as a whole wasn’t completely snubbed, as it actually won Best Song for John’s “I’m Gonna Love Me Again.” But that was its only nomination, as voters couldn’t or wouldn’t elevate Egerton the way they did Rami Malek a year earlier, or boost it into Best Picture regardless of what critics said. Perhaps opening in early summer instead of the fall made it easier for “Rocketman” to fade from voters’ long-term memory, which could signal that “Michael’s” late April release date will make it easier to forget by winter too – unless its box office and controversy really do make it linger for months on end.
After “Rocketman,” the fifth-highest-grossing musical biopic was “Walk the Line,” and if “Rocketman” suffered from coming out so soon after “Bohemian Rhapsody,” it was the polar opposite of how “Walk the Line” thrived despite “Ray” coming out a year earlier. Yet it was a special circumstance that the two of them were seen as similar in almost every way, right down to winning lead-acting Oscars and inspiring the spoof movie “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story”, which is still brought up whenever a serious music biopic is especially and egregiously formulaic.
One of those examples may be “Bob Marley: One Love,” which nonetheless joined “Ray” and “A Complete Unknown” to round out the eight musical biopics to date that have made over $100 million worldwide. Like “Rocketman,” it opened very early in the year, topped $90 million domestic, and featured a widely praised lead in Kingsley Ben-Adir as Bob Marley. Yet it had considerably worse reviews and was a distant afterthought for any nominations by the end of 2024, unlike fellow musical biopic “A Complete Unknown” at the very end of that year.
“Bob Marley: One Love” only had a 43 on MetaCritic, which really isn’t that far off from the historically low 49 of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” But unlike the latter movie, the former wasn’t overwhelmingly gigantic enough on a worldwide scale to make its bad reviews such an afterthought with the Academy. In that context, since “Michael’s” box office will surely be far closer to “Bohemian Rhapsody” than to “Bob Marley: One Love,” maybe even scoring below 49 on MetaCritic might not be enough to write it off totally. Still, it seems that the theory will be put to the test.
“Michael’s” review score embargo finally broke two days before its first public screenings, painting a picture of “sub-Bohemian Rhapsody” level horrors with a 38 on MetaCritic through 29 reviews, as well as an opening 32 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 4.6 average critics rating. Such scores would automatically disqualify that kind of film from any awards consideration 99 percent of the time, even if it were a major box-office hit.
However, “Michael” is now all but officially set to be the worst-reviewed musical biopic that still winds up a massive worldwide hit – even more so than “Bohemian Rhapsody” – and which still seems to have widely praised performances from Jackson and two-time Oscar nominee Colman Domingo. Maybe if Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor turn out to have especially vulnerable bubbles this year, and if “Michael” isn’t instantly forgotten for any reason – good or infamous – long after its big opening weekend, it will give some Academy voters the excuse they need to fall back into old habits.
No matter how evolved or diverse Oscar voters’ tastes have become in recent years, there are some levels of Oscar bait they still can’t bring themselves to ignore, regardless of how everyone else feels about it. They’ve made some exceptions when it comes to musical biopics, but they have still never completely snubbed one as huge as “Michael” is going to become. Yet if something that may wind up being the worst or second-worst reviewed musical biopic of this era also winds up being the biggest or second biggest grossing musical biopic of all time, will voters still ignore “Michael’s” reviews just like audiences will – and just like they’ve done for so many similar films before?
Have you seen “Michael” yet? If so, what did you think of it? Are you planning to see it this weekend? Do you think it can still be an Oscar contender with these reviews? Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account.
You can follow Robert and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on X @Robertdoc1984
