Box Office: ‘Michael’ Soaring to Huge $12M-$13M in U.S. Previews Amid Over-the-Moon Audience Scores

Michael debuted to $12.6 million in Wednesday-Thursday previews and is tracking toward a $70 million-plus domestic opening, which would be the biggest ever for a music biopic. Internationally, it added $16.6 million on Wednesday for $18.5 million including previews, with standout starts in France, the U.K. & Ireland, Italy, Australia, and Brazil. The strong audience response and elevated tracking suggest robust demand, though criticism of the film’s handling of abuse allegations has created a mixed reception.

Analysis

The market is pricing this as more than a single-film beat; the real signal is that premium-format demand is still elastic for event content, and that matters most for IMAX’s revenue mix and utilization. A strong opening here should translate into outsized share capture because PLF screens monetize first-week enthusiasm better than standard auditoriums, so even a modest multiplier shortfall would still leave IMAX well positioned on near-term box office economics.

The second-order read-through is to exhibitors and content suppliers: if this title sustains momentum, studios will have more evidence that legacy IP with multigenerational awareness can still pull lapsed consumers back into theaters, improving the bargaining position of premium format operators and reducing the “theatrical is dead” narrative. That tends to help the whole moviegoing stack, but the incremental winner is whoever controls scarce premium inventory, not the underlying studio slate.

The bigger risk is front-loading. Strong previews plus polarizing reviews create a setup where opening-weekend prints look excellent but the back half of the run decays quickly if the core audience is exhausted by day one. If that happens, the stock reaction in IMAX can overshoot the eventual economics because the market will initially extrapolate a strong domestic start into a durable attendance reset that may not materialize.

On FOXA, the setup is much less direct despite the legacy association with the underlying IP history. This is mostly a sentiment read-through for broader media assets rather than a fundamentals catalyst, so any move there should be treated as a trading sympathy bid, not a durable rerating event.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Long IMAX into the first-weekend print, with a 1-3 week horizon; best risk/reward is if domestic box office holds above the high-$60Ms and PLF mix stays elevated. Use a tight stop if Saturday/Sunday holds disappoint and the market starts pricing a steep second-week drop-off.
• Consider buying short-dated IMAX call spreads rather than stock to express the upside from a premium-format beat while capping downside if reviews or weekday holds soften. Favor strikes that profit from a modest post-open rerating rather than a perfect box office outcome.
• Avoid chasing FOXA on the headline alone; the article does not create a direct earnings revision path. If anything, treat FOXA as a sell-the-rip candidate if it gaps on sympathy, since the read-through is narrative-driven and likely to fade within days.
• If IMAX spikes on the opening print, monetize into strength and look for a re-entry only if weekday holds confirm a durable attendance reset. The trade is strongest in the first 3-5 sessions when incremental data can still change consensus.
• Pair long IMAX / short a broad media basket over 2-4 weeks to isolate the premium-format demand inflection from generic media sentiment. The risk is that the entire theater complex catches a broader sentiment lift, so size the short leg smaller than the long.