When Brookfield Asset Management invested $2 billion Primary wave About two years ago, a representative of the Canadian box office predicted that just as there was a wave of comic book superhero movies, there would be a wave of musical biopics.
“The music will be like the catalogs of Marvel and DC comics,” Angelo Ruffinowho was then the managing partner at Brookfield behind the Primary Wave investment, said in October 2022. “There are so many ways to monetize music that I think are in the early stages.”
Hollywood has produced superhero movies, from Batman to Black Pantherbut the genre has been attracting a smaller audience lately. With a slew of music biopics coming out in the coming years — including feature films about Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Queen Latifah, four movies about each member of the Beatles and maybe one about the Bee Gees — have we reached peak resume?
The top post on Reddit's subreddit page about Dylan as of this writing is titled, “On not interest in A Complete Unknown,” and it's far from the only complaint about musician dramatizations currently touring the Internet.
However, many factors contribute to a full musician resume, and consumers only ask for one. By this measure, many recent musical biographies have become successes. About half of the 25 highest-grossing biopics of all time, according to boxofficemojo.com, have been released since 2014, with Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody at No. 1 with $216.4 million, Straight Outta Compton for NWA at No. 2 with $161.2 million and Elvis at No. 3 with $151 million all in gross in the United States.
Natalia Nataskinchief content officer at Primary Wave, which participated in the 2022 release “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody” — No. 24 of the top 25 grossing biopics — says demand remains high. But the years it can take to land the lead actors, directors and producers necessary to make a successful film can mean these films will continue to be released for years to come.
“I think we're going to see more of these biopics because we're always fascinated by the stories of our rock stars and the backstory of their lives,” Nastaskin tells Billboard. “How many biopics will we see? To really hit that cultural buzz can take several years.”
Primary Wave is currently involved in Boyz II Men and Boy George biopics—both in production.
Another factor that can upset the normal line between supply and demand is the different ways Hollywood and the music industry make money from these movies. Hollywood defines a successful movie by the revenue it makes. the music industry is more interested in how it gets moviegoers to stream the music, buy merchandise, and the tangential licensing opportunities afforded by the music's resurgent relevance.
With these definitions, Elvis it was a crash. All the activity that the Baz Luhrmann The biopic propelled Elvis' music and brand increased Presley's estimated net worth to around $1 billion in 2022 from an estimated $400 million to $600 million in 2020.
It may take years to measure its impact Timothée ChalametBob Dylan's performance in his catalog, at least until 2025, when the Michael Jackson biopic is scheduled to be released. With Beatles films due in 2027, there seems to be no shortage of musician biopics.
