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‘Michael’ Reclaims Top Box Office Spot in its 4th Weekend

People observe the ‘Michael’ movie poster at a multiplex theater in La Paz, Bolivia, 23 April 2026. EPA/LUIS GANDARILLAS
People observe the ‘Michael’ movie poster at a multiplex theater in La Paz, Bolivia, 23 April 2026. EPA/LUIS GANDARILLAS
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‘Michael’ Reclaims Top Box Office Spot in its 4th Weekend

People observe the ‘Michael’ movie poster at a multiplex theater in La Paz, Bolivia, 23 April 2026. EPA/LUIS GANDARILLAS
People observe the ‘Michael’ movie poster at a multiplex theater in La Paz, Bolivia, 23 April 2026. EPA/LUIS GANDARILLAS

After two weeks trailing “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” the Michael Jackson biopic “Michael” reclaimed the No. 1 spot at the North American box office with $26.1 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The Lionsgate movie is in rarefied territory, having brought in $703.9 million worldwide and counting. It still has a way to go to surpass the current reigning champion of musical biopics: “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The Queen movie grossed over $910.8 million worldwide.

There were also several newcomers in the mix this weekend, including the relationship horror movie “Obsession,” the Guy Ritchie action pic “In the Grey” and the revenge saga “Is God Is,” but the holdovers continued to draw the largest crowds. The power dynamics are poised to shift when “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” hits theaters next weekend.

Disney and 20th Century Studios' “The Devil Wears Prada 2” took second place in its third weekend with $18 million, bringing its domestic total to $175.9 million and worldwide earnings to $546.2 million.

“Obsession” topped the newcomers, exceeding expectations with an estimated $16.1 million from 2,615 theaters. YouTube breakout Curry Barker wrote and directed the thriller in which a hopeless romantic gets more than he bargained for when his crush returns his affections. The film received positive reviews from both critics (94% on Rotten Tomatoes) and audiences (A- CinemaScore). Perhaps more notable is that Barker made the film for $750,000. Focus Features acquired it out of the Toronto International Film Festival last fall for around $15 million.

Lisa Bunnell, president of domestic distribution for Focus Features, attributed some of “Obsession's” success to audiences craving fresh, original voices at the movies. It’s also getting an infusion by word-of-mouth, with younger audiences making plans to go back with friends. Horror movies don’t often get CinemaScores in the A- range, but “Obsession” is in good company with another recent hit: “Weapons.”

“I’m expecting a really strong holdover,” Bunnell said.

Fourth place at the box office this weekend went to “Mortal Kombat II,” which fell 65% in its second weekend to $13.4 million in domestic ticket sales. Globally, it has made $101.2 million from 80 markets.

Amazon MGM Studios had three movies in the top 10, including “The Sheep Detectives” in fifth place, “Project Hail Mary” in seventh place and “Is God Is” rounding out the top 10.

“The Sheep Detectives” enjoyed a slim 33% drop from its first weekend, taking in an additional $10.2 million and bringing its running total to $30.5 million. “Project Hail Mary,” which is now available to rent or buy at home, brought in another $3.4 million in its ninth weekend in theaters. “Is God Is,” Aleshea Harris’s adaptation of her Obie-winning play about twin sisters ( Kara Young and Mallori Johnson ) on a quest to find and kill their abusive father made $2.2 million in its first weekend in theaters. It has a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Meanwhile, the action caper “In the Grey,” released by Black Bear, made $3 million from 2,018 locations. Henry Cavill, Jake Gyllenhaal and Eiza González star in the film about a team of elite operatives on an impossible mission. It currently carries a 44% on Rotten Tomatoes and a B CinemaScore.

There were also several high-profile re-releases in theaters this weekend, including “Top Gun” which made $3.1 million, and “Shrek” which earned $1.3 million.

Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends for Comscore, noted that “Prada,” “Michael” and “Top Gun” all making the top 10 show “nostalgia is on full display.”

“What’s old is new again and audiences clearly love it,” he said.

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Entertainment

Actor Jon Voight Met with Trump to Advocate for Hollywood Tax Incentives

Cast member Jon Voight attends a premiere for the film "Reagan" at TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, California, US, August 20, 2024. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni Purchase Licensing Rights
Cast member Jon Voight attends a premiere for the film "Reagan" at TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, California, US, August 20, 2024. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni Purchase Licensing Rights
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Actor Jon Voight Met with Trump to Advocate for Hollywood Tax Incentives

Cast member Jon Voight attends a premiere for the film "Reagan" at TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, California, US, August 20, 2024. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni Purchase Licensing Rights
Cast member Jon Voight attends a premiere for the film "Reagan" at TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, California, US, August 20, 2024. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni Purchase Licensing Rights

Actor Jon Voight met with President Donald Trump earlier this year to advocate for a federal tax credit intended to help boost film and TV production in the United States, representatives of the actor said on Monday.

The previously undisclosed meeting at the White House on February 11 is part of a Hollywood effort to secure federal assistance to fight the flight of production overseas, Reuters reported.

When asked about the meeting, a White House spokesperson said Trump "is committed to Make Hollywood Great Again, and his administration continues to explore all possible policy options to ensure Hollywood remains a potent force of American culture.”

Trump named Voight, who rose to fame following ‌his role ‌in the 1969 film "Midnight Cowboy," as one of three special ambassadors ‌to ⁠Hollywood along with ⁠Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson in January 2025.

To fight an exodus of entertainment production abroad, Voight is working with a coalition that includes the Motion Picture Association, the Directors Guild of America and unions representing actors, writers and other talent.

SP Media Group CEO Steven Paul, a film producer and Voight's agent, and SP Media President Scott Karol have proposed a 20% federal tax credit for labor ⁠costs on a film or television production in the United ‌States.

An additional 5% could be earned for ‌independent films or for filming in a disaster zone or a defined “enterprise zone.” Those credits ‌could be used in tandem with state incentives.

The goal is to ‌make the cost of domestic production competitive with Britain and other places around the world that offer tax credits, lower labor costs and world-class soundstages.

Overseas incentives have been luring movie and TV producers to locations outside the United States for years. Filming in the US ‌declined 10% in the first quarter, compared with a year ago, according to ProdPro, which tracks worldwide film ⁠and television production.

The United ⁠States accounted for roughly 38% of film and television work in the first quarter of the year, while the United Kingdom and Canada together represented nearly one-third of global production, ProdPro reported.

In September 2025, Trump floated the idea of a 100% tariff on movies made abroad as a way to bring production back to the United States. Industry advocates welcomed Trump's desire to fight production flight but have urged the president to support tax incentives.

California more than doubled its annual tax incentives for film and television production in June 2025 to $750 million. Early results show the effort helped bring some projects back to Hollywood. Shoot days in Los Angeles rose nearly 11% in the first quarter of this year, according to permitting agency FilmLA.

Entertainment

Kylie Minogue Looks Back on Life in Pop Music in New Documentary

Kylie Minogue arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar party after the 96th Academy Awards, known as the Oscars, in Beverly Hills, California, US, March 10, 2024. (Reuters)
Kylie Minogue arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar party after the 96th Academy Awards, known as the Oscars, in Beverly Hills, California, US, March 10, 2024. (Reuters)
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Kylie Minogue Looks Back on Life in Pop Music in New Documentary

Kylie Minogue arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar party after the 96th Academy Awards, known as the Oscars, in Beverly Hills, California, US, March 10, 2024. (Reuters)
Kylie Minogue arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar party after the 96th Academy Awards, known as the Oscars, in Beverly Hills, California, US, March 10, 2024. (Reuters)

Kylie Minogue opens ‌up about her life in pop music for new documentary "KYLIE", looking back on her career as well as the personal challenges she has faced, such as the scrutiny when she was starting out and overcoming breast cancer.

The three-part series, which premieres on Netflix on Wednesday, sees the "Spinning Around" and "Padam Padam" singer share videos and photos from her personal archive and talk about her rise to stardom.

“Oh, there were surprises ‌left, right and ‌center, like 'Ooh, er, no, yes, ‌that ⁠was good. That ⁠should never have happened'. Like, there was worlds within worlds within worlds of the archive," Minogue told Reuters on making the docuseries.

"A nice surprise is that I can kind of recognize myself from the beginning ... I don't know that I've changed that ⁠much. My level of experience has changed... ‌But I can see ... ‌the seed of who I was and I think that's ‌really moving."

Minogue, 57, first starred on Australian ‌soap "Neighbours" in the 1980s before kicking off her music career with hits such as "The Loco-Motion" and "I Should Be So Lucky". She has gone on to sell more than 80 ‌million records worldwide and has won numerous awards, including two Grammys.

In the docuseries, she ⁠talks ⁠about success but also about the scrutiny and criticism she faced early in her career, being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005, as well as her personal relationships. There are also interviews with her sister, singer Dannii Minogue, her former "Neighbours" co-star Jason Donovan and singer Nick Cave.

"I just go with my gut. I go with what's inspiring me at the time. I think whatever I do depends on what I've done previously," she said on reinventing herself during her career.

Entertainment

Blockbuster ‘Hope’ Shows S.Korea’s Growing Movie Muscle

Director Na Hong-jin and cast members Hwang Jung-min, Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender, Taylor Russell and Hoyeon pose on the red carpet during arrivals for the screening of the film "Hope" in competition at the 79th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, May 17, 2026. (Reuters)
Director Na Hong-jin and cast members Hwang Jung-min, Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender, Taylor Russell and Hoyeon pose on the red carpet during arrivals for the screening of the film "Hope" in competition at the 79th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, May 17, 2026. (Reuters)
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Blockbuster ‘Hope’ Shows S.Korea’s Growing Movie Muscle

Director Na Hong-jin and cast members Hwang Jung-min, Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender, Taylor Russell and Hoyeon pose on the red carpet during arrivals for the screening of the film "Hope" in competition at the 79th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, May 17, 2026. (Reuters)
Director Na Hong-jin and cast members Hwang Jung-min, Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender, Taylor Russell and Hoyeon pose on the red carpet during arrivals for the screening of the film "Hope" in competition at the 79th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, May 17, 2026. (Reuters)

Acclaimed director Na Hong-jin has unveiled South Korea's biggest budget film ever: a blood-splattered sci-fi thriller featuring killer extraterrestrials played by real-life couple Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander.

"Hope" by Na, whose low-budget horror movie "The Wailing" became a huge hit in his home country, was able to give free rein to his dark imagination in this gory tale of alien invasion.

"It's the most expensive film in the history of Korean cinema," Na told AFP in an interview at the Cannes Film Festival where the film premiered on Sunday night.

"It's a film that really required a very, very large budget because of the special effects, the design, the actors."

Despite having a genre-defying concept that was hard to sell initially -- it skips between thriller, sci-fi, horror and comedy -- he received backing from Korea's Plus M Entertainment and a budget of around 30 million euros ($35 million).

The cost of "Hope" underlines the increasing resources available to South Korean directors whose hit films such as the quadruple Oscar-winning "Parasite", as well as TV series like "Squid Game" have turned the home of KPop music into a global entertainment center.

Reviews for "Hope" were broadly positive, with Screen magazine calling it "a thunderously entertaining genre mash-up" while The Hollywood Reporter said it had "instant cult classic written all over it".

But others such as IndieWire slammed the quality of the special effects -- suggesting the budget was "not enough" for Na's grand ambitions, while its run-time of 160 minutes was described as "over long" by Variety.

Although married acting couple Fassbender and Vikander, stars of films from "12 Years a Slave" to "Ex Machina", are listed on the film's cast, many fans might struggle to recognize them.

Their acting has been transformed by special effects, with all the recognizable lead roles performed by bankable Korean stars including Hwang Jung-min, as well as Hoyeon from "Squid Game".

- Korean wave -

The all-action film, full of bodily fluids and gunfire, revolves around a clash between the residents of a remote town close to the frontier between South and North Korea and terrifying visitors from another planet.

With its themes of conflict and the incompetence of local officials, Na said he had "the wars that we know at the moment and the political situation that we had" at the time in his mind as he was writing the screenplay.

"Hope", intended as the first film in a series, is one of 22 films competing for the prestigious Palme d'Or prize for best film in Cannes.

It is the first by Na in 10 years since "The Wailing", which also focused on a remote location struggling with a mystery arrival.

The Cannes jury this year is headed by a South Korean director for the first time, Park Chan-wook, the maker of arthouse classics such as "Oldboy" and "The Handmaiden".

"Korea is playing a role as one of the central hubs of the film world, and I believe this is a movement befitting the time," he told AFP last week.

"It makes me think of a lot of the (Korean) predecessors who were truly outstanding but never had the opportunity to be recognized internationally," he added.

Park insisted that he would not favor his compatriot, Na.

"Some even joked that I might go out of my way to be harsher on a Korean film, because it wouldn't look good if I appeared to be favoring it," he told AFP. "I intend to judge everything as fairly and objectively as possible."