Hollywood film Michael has opened well at the Indian box office, collecting Rs. 6 crore (USD 650K) approx. This includes Rs. 1.60 crore approx from the previews on Thursday. The opening is somewhat surprising because until now, no Hollywood musical biopic has done well in India. Bohemian Rhapsody, which was a global blockbuster in 2018, grossed just Rs. 7 crore in India. Michael has almost matched that on its very first day.
The film heavily overindexed in South India, with almost two-thirds of its opening day box office coming from the three South Indian circuits. The biggest of them was Tamil Nadu – Kerala, followed by the Telugu states and Karnataka. Among the Hindi circuits, the Mumbai-Pune belt did well; other places were low. This is down to a lack of popularity of English music in the Hindi belt, which was mostly a niche urban Indian phenomenon, while the local music dominated the market. In India, Michael Jackson was probably more popular for his dance and traditionally dance films have done better in Mumbai and South India, underperforming severly in the North.
The film was quite a bit pre-sales heavy, as more than half of its first day business came from advance booking itself. The advances for Saturday are good; there will be a growth, albeit not a lot. Sunday could see a drop in business as metros generally ease off on Sunday. The weekend is expected to be around Rs. 17 crore (USD 1.75 million). How it holds on Monday will tell where the film could go in its full run.
Michael has opened strongly worldwide. In North America, it is said to have grossed around USD 40 million on its opening day, on track to reach USD 90 million opening weekend. The overseas business till Thursday was USD 32 million, the weekend should be USD 100 million plus, possibly closer to USD 125 million. The worldwide weekend will be north of USD 200 million; in the long run, it could aim for USD 1 billion.
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