With Jeremy Fuster unable to make it this week, two of our more frequent guests, Chrissi Michaels and Aaron Neuwirth, stopped by to discuss all things Michael.

By the way, the Michael Jackson biopic earned $7.65 million on Monday (-70% from its $25.4 million Sunday gross), bringing its domestic four-day total to $104.9 million.

The subjects of discourse include, of course, what was in the movie, what wasn’t, and how legal complications forced the filmmakers to craft a more commercially viable King of Pop biography.

However, all parties agree that there could have been a happy medium between the “Passion of the Michael” melodrama that the filmmakers (and those supervising the late singer’s estate) wanted to produce and the almost comically “just play the hits” jukebox final cut.

The participants (including Max Deering, Lisa Laman and Scott Mendelson) each declare their favorite music biopic, while discussing the still semi-regular habit of pundits underestimating the breakout appeal of “not a white guy” crowdpleasers, the complicated circumstances that cloud this otherwise aspirational success story and the challenging (but not impossible) hurdles posed by a potential sequel.

Recommended Reading…

* Scott Mendelson’s studio-by-studio CinemaCon dissections, Angel Studios, Studiocanal and Sony Pictures Classics, Sony, NEON and KGids, Warner Bros., Universal, (Amazon MGM Studios, Paramount, Disney/20th Century Studios

* Jeremy Fuster couldn’t make it this week, but if he had, he likely would have put some of his written Michael weekend box office analysis into spoken words.

* Lisa Laman reported on “Sapphic Open Mic Night,” a semi-regular event in Dallas highlighting the art created by an oft-silenced community.

* Ryan Scott offered up his morning-after analysis on Michael’s blow-out box office debut.

* Max Deering tipped his hat to Jordan Downey’s The Head Hunter, a very low-budget (around $30,000) hybrid that fuses fantasy with horror while giving each genre comparatively equal footing. Uh… I’m sold.

* Chrissi Michaels chimed in on the fifth anniversary of one of the very best “Covid casualty” movies of the early 2020s, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar.

* Aaron Neuwirth discussed, back when the music video was attached to opening weekend IMAX prints of The House with a Clock in Its Walls, why Michael Jackson’s Thriller was one of the very best horror movies ever made.

If you like what you hear...Please like, share, comment, and subscribe (using a cartoon mallet) with every justified ounce of strength and passion. If you’d like to reach out and offer good cheer, request in-show discussions, or suggest ideas for bonus episodes, please email us at Asktheboxofficepod@gmail.com (which I finally fixed so that it’ll forward to my personal business email, natch).

* Scott Mendelson - The Outside Scoop and Puck News

* Jeremy Fuster - TheWrap

* Lisa Laman - Dallas Observer, Pajiba, Looper, Comic Book and Autostraddle

* Ryan C. Scott - SlashFilm, Fangoria and Inverse

* Max Deering - Fangoria and Action For Everyone

* Chrissi Michael - c(ine)m(a) studies

* Aaron Neuwirth - The Code is Zeek and We Live Entertainment

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