Instagram was one of the early clues that “Michael” was destined to be a huge hit. Nowadays, studios often secure a film’s social media handles years before launching a marketing campaign. After Lionsgate promoted @michaelmovie for its Michael Jackson biopic, executives realized the account had amassed 20,000 followers before the studio had shared a single poster or trailer or added a profile photo.
“We had never seen numbers like that before any kind of material was released. In fact, the account was private,” recalls Brianna McElroy, executive vice president of digital marketing for Lionsgate Film Group. “Something special was happening.”
After a year-long, $60 million marketing campaign, “Michael” arrived in theaters and became an instant hit. The film grossed $97 million domestically and $217 million worldwide, breaking the opening weekend record for a music biopic and surpassing the benchmark set by 2015’s Straight Outta Compton ($60 million). Weeks later, the film still has grossed $283 million in North America and $706 million worldwide. Through word of mouth and repeat viewings, ticket sales have exceeded $900 million, and are expected to reach close to $1 billion by the end of the film’s run. That would put “Michael” in competition with 2018’s Queen sensation “Bohemian Rhapsody” ($911 million) as the biggest music biopic of all time.
Indeed, “Michael” is a song about one of the most famous figures of all time, the King of Pop. However, box office glory was not guaranteed. Major studios didn’t even want to bid for the rights, believing the film wasn’t worth the PR headache. Jackson, who died in 2009, became a polarizing cultural figure after being accused of decades of child sexual abuse. (He denied the accusations.) Later, a late-stage discovery by the singer’s estate who was the film’s producer made “Michael’s” commercial prospects even more precarious. The law found legal provisions requiring an overhaul of the Third Act, delayed its release by a year and extended its carefully crafted marketing campaign.
“Michael” omits the most controversial aspects of Jackson’s life, allowing Lionsgate to focus on crowd-pleasing elements of the film, such as concert performances and meticulous recreations of music videos. Directed by Antoine Fuqua, the film depicts the Jackson 5 from their early days to the 1988 “Bad” tour that established Jackson as one of the greatest entertainers on the planet.
Unlike, say, Paramount’s musical biopic “Better Man,” about British performer Robbie Williams, Lionsgate didn’t have to introduce Jackson to the public. (A bigger challenge was making it clear that “Michael” was not a documentary.) Studio executives describe a “fan-forward” approach to marketing, with an emphasis on communal experiences. And the easier it is to share on TikTok, the better.
“Campaigns need to feel like events,” says Amanda Kozlowski, Lionsgate Motion Picture Group’s newly appointed head of marketing. “By doing so, we can emphasize that the movie is an event and worth the time, planning, and considerable expense to go to the theater.”
These experiential initiatives include billboards featuring live DJs and “Don’t Walk, Moonwalk” flash mobs, where performers take over busy intersections in 20 cities around the world. The video of the dancers dancing across the street while a car was stopped at a red light has been viewed more than 36.1 million times on social platforms. The studio also created a hologram of Jackson that appeared in 13 theaters and about 40 shopping malls, allowing audiences to learn legendary dance moves from Jackson himself, with the help of his nephew and on-screen agent Jaafar Jackson. Another highlight was partnering with marching bands from historically black colleges and universities, including Florida A&M University, Jackson State University and Southern University, to spotlight Jackson’s music to a younger generation.
Nostalgia was important to older fans. The studio timed promotional stunts to coincide with landmark moments in Jackson’s career, including the 1993 Super Bowl halftime show and Motown’s 25th anniversary performance, where the moonwalk was born. Lionsgate also hired former MTV News VJ Bill Bellamy, whose music videos for “Billie Jean” and “Thriller” premiered.
“When you have artists of this magnitude, you create a collective sensory memory that is empowering,” Kozlovsky says. “We started going back to moments that we all remember and thinking about how we could recreate or utilize them.”
As Lionsgate executives looked more closely at their social media followers, they realized that many of them were older Gen Xers and Millennials. They were surprised to see that many of them were Gen Z, reinforcing their focus on live experiences.
“Gen Z is all about community. They wear this when they see the movie ‘Michael,'” McElroy says. “We wanted to give people the opportunity to share in all of that excitement.”
