The Michael Jackson biopic streaming date is officially locked in, and the film that turned into one of the biggest movie events of the year is finally headed to a living room near you.
According to Deadline, “Michael” will begin streaming exclusively on Starz on August 10, closing out a 108 day theatrical run that reshaped what people thought a music biopic could do at the box office.
Long before Michael hit theaters, anticipation was already through the roof. A teaser trailer released in November 2025 broke viewership records, pulling in more than 116 million views within its first day. Early box office forecasts had the film’s domestic opening landing somewhere between 50 and $65 million. “Michael” blew past that. Directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by John Logan, the film opened April 24 and pulled in $97.2 million domestically and $217 million worldwide in its opening weekend alone. A debut that surpassed the previous opening record for a musical biopic set by “Straight Outta Compton“ in 2015.
From there, “Michael” just kept climbing. The the film crossed the one billion dollar mark at the global box office, becoming the third movie this year to reach that milestone, joining “Toy Story 5” and “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” on that list. That kind of run put Michael in territory previously held by some of the most decorated films in Hollywood history.
The records fell fast once the billion dollar benchmark hit. “Michael” became Lionsgate’s highest grossing film ever, surpassing 2013’s “Hunger Games Catching Fire,” which closed its run at $865.2 million. The film also overtook “Oppenheimer’s” $975 million total to become the highest grossing biopic ever made, and passed “Bohemian Rhapsody’s” $911 million to claim the title of highest grossing music biopic of all time.
Starring Michael Jackson’s real life nephew Jaafar Jackson in his acting debut, “Michael” traces the singer’s rise from his childhood in Gary, Indiana with the Jackson 5 through his emergence as a global solo star. Colman Domingo plays patriarch Joe Jackson, Nia Long plays Katherine Jackson, and the cast rounds out with Miles Teller, Laura Harrier, and Mike Myers.
Reception told two very different stories. Critics were split on the film, but audiences showed up in a major way. “Michael” earned an A minus CinemaScore and a 97 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, numbers that explain why the box office kept climbing week after week even as reviews stayed mixed.
That gap between critics and audiences is exactly why the “Michael” streaming date matters so much. A film that thrived on repeat viewings and strong word of mouth in theaters is now positioned to reach an entirely new audience that either could not make it to the movies or wants to revisit Michael Jackson’s story from home. The film will be available across the Starz app and all Starz streaming and on demand platforms starting August 10, with a television premiere on the Starz channel that same night at 7 p.m. Eastern and Pacific time.
For Starz, landing the streaming debut of the biggest biopic in box office history is a major subscriber play heading into the fall season. For Lionsgate, moving Michael to streaming keeps the film in the conversation right as awards season chatter begins to build, giving it another shot at reaching voters and audiences who missed it in theaters. The move also keeps momentum going for the Jackson family’s broader push to bring more of Michael’s story to the screen.
“Michael” proved that Michael Jackson’s music and legacy can still fill theaters more than fifteen years after his death. Now, with the “Michael” streaming date locked in for August 10 on Starz, the King of Pop is set to make one more run, this time straight into living rooms.
