In February 2022, Lionsgate announced an upcoming film, Michael, a music biopic centered around the life of Michael Jackson. It is set for release in theaters on April 24th, 2026, and is considered the most anticipated music biopic ever, being Lionsgate’s biggest project yet. Though being one of the most anticipated upcoming releases, Michael is not the first of its kind. In 2024 and 2025 alone, at least five major music biopics were released, including Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere and Bob Marley: One Love. Since 2005, the number of music biopics released per year has surged, with some wondering what may be the cause of this rapid increase.
Music biopics inherently have characteristics that make them enticing for the viewer and film studios alike. A way to guarantee some sort of box office success is to write a movie about someone with a large fan base. Musicians usually gather much more passionate fans than other celebrities, meaning fans would be more drawn to a movie about them than one about a different type of celebrity. Additionally, many of the most famous musicians are already dead, therefore a movie about them would be more emotionally charged and may serve as a tribute to a beloved figure.
“I like being able to see the musical artists that I follow,” Freshman Zander Tu said about watching music biopics. “I especially like the concerts and the music.” People are clearly drawn to movies that feature some of their favorite people and songs, and music biopics can deliver this to widespread audiences.
There is a clear formula to many of these music biopic stories. They often cover the beginning of the career and struggles to gain traction, success, an eventual fall off, and a final performance to conclude the story. Following a formula allows film studios to save money on writing a plot, and film studios prefer to spend as little money as possible on producing movies. With an easy-to-replicate formula and little to no use of visual effects, biopics are one of the most cost-effective genres. According to Stat Significant, music biopics currently have the second-highest average return on investment, only behind horror films. Coupling this with the near-guarantee of widespread interest associated with famous musicians, it’s no wonder that music biopic releases are exploding in number.
While this may make it seem like music biopics are the perfect movie genre, there are problems associated with oversaturating a genre like this, and audiences have begun to catch on to the trend. Many of these movies follow the same predictable storyline, and can become boring to watch for viewers who have watched other movie biopics. It is also clear that many of these movies expect ticket sales based on the allure of famous figures rather than actual quality. This means they may care more about getting audiences hooked than keeping them entertained with interesting plots.
2025 was the first year in recent history that music biopics did not have much commercial success. Springsteen, Deliver Me From Nowhere released into theaters on October 24 of last year. It was projected to have a 15-25 million dollar opening weekend in the U.S., and it only made 9.1 million. In total, it has come nowhere close to turning a profit. This disappointing result was the most prominent of many in 2025, and may be a sign of audience fatigue for the genre. After being saturated with too many of a certain type of movie, audiences begin to become disinterested. This has been happening to superhero movies and Marvel recently, and may be what is happening to music biopics.
Though there were many flops in 2025, A Complete Unknown, which follows Bob Dylan, stood out as a commercial success, grossing $140 million on a $60-70 million budget. While many audiences seem tired of the repetitive life story biopic formula, this movie stood out by focusing on a small portion of Dylan’s life, which, along with other small divergences from the typical biopic formula, can likely be attributed to its success. It’s also possible that audiences simply care more about musical artists like Bob Dylan than ones like Bruce Springsteen, and the success of these movies is only based on who it is written about.
While the typical music biopic formula is starting to lose audiences, the genre clearly is not finished. Movies that dare to stray from this formula are continuing to succeed, and there are many loved artists yet to be covered. With production showing no signs of stopping and future sales being uncertain, only time will tell if future music biopics, like Michael, will be able to interest audiences.
