Culture / Film & TV

A billion-dollar Michael: the biopic that outgrossed every biopic

Lionsgate's Michael has taken $1.029 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing biopic ever made, and now the industry is formalising the applause. The Gotham Awards will honour the cast and filmmakers in New York on November 30.

New York, United States · October 18, 2026

The Gotham Film & Media Institute has announced that the cast and filmmakers behind Michael will receive the Gotham Musical Tribute at the 36th Annual Gotham Film Awards, held at Cipriani Wall Street in New York on November 30, 2026. The honourees include director Antoine Fuqua, Jaafar Jackson, who plays his uncle in the title role, Colman Domingo, Nia Long and producer Graham King.

Awards like this usually chase critical heat. This one is chasing a number. The film has grossed $1.029 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing biographical film of all time and the first biopic ever to pass $1 billion. Music biopics were supposed to top out well below that line, in the respectable few hundreds of millions. Michael walked straight through it.

A sequel is already in development, which tells you how Lionsgate reads the result: not as a one-off tribute act but as a franchise with a catalogue attached. The Gotham honour is the industry catching up with what the box office said months ago.