Movie Monday: ‘Michael’ Biopic a Box Office Thriller

When the Michael biopic appeared in theaters, it may as well have told the other movies to beat it.

Like a beauty queen from a movie scene, the movie brought in droves of people to watch it—97 million dollars’ worth of tickets were sold in the U.S. and Canada alone. That makes the movie 2026’s second-largest domestic debut to date (even the King of Pop can’t take down the Mario Bros.) As for the rest of the world? They took a look at Michael and spent some change—a whopping $120.4 million of it. So if you really want to know the whole world’s answer to the film, it amounts to $217.4 million.

Since none of the other newcomers to the box office performed very well, the rest of our top five are familiar faces: The Super Mario Galaxy Movie placed second with $21.2 million. The number powers up its domestic cume to $386.5 million. And as for the galaxy? They’ve spent $831.5 million to watch the movie, giving the animated film a comfortable lead as 2026’s highest-grossing flick.

And as galaxies go, none but Project Hail Mary could compete with Mario. It took home third place after engineering another $13.2 million for its cause. Domestically, the movie has splashed down into $305.4 million—and its worldwide gains amount to $613.4 million. That places Hail Mary as 2026’s third-highest-grossing movie, just behind Pegasus 3, a Chinese racing movie which has earned $648.7 million worldwide (though, if you haven’t heard of it, you’re not alone: 99.8% of that number came from international earnings).

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy buried itself further this week, dropping from third place to fourth. It wrapped up another $5.6 million, filling its domestic tomb with $23.5 million. With a better international performance, the movie has raised $65.5 million.

And rounding out the top five is The Drama, which, like all the movies mentioned before, fell a spot because of Michael. This week, The Drama earned $2.6 million, raising its domestic earnings to $44.8 million. The comedy, worldwide, holds a $101.8 million cume.

Looking down the list at new releases (and speaking of movies featuring killer relationship issues), Over Your Dead Body debuted in eighth place. It took $1.4 million. And Mother Mary opened one place lower in ninth with $1.3 million.

Unfortunately for Fuze, it fizzled out almost as soon as it was lit. The movie opened in 11^th place with $1 million. Still, it did better than Desert Warrior, whose visions of success seem to have been a mere mirage. It generated $472,000—good enough for 13^th place.