The Michael Jackson biopic “Michael” has reclaimed the top spot at the domestic box office in its fourth weekend, grossing another $26.3 million and pushing its global tally past $703 million. The film, starring the late singer’s nephew Jaafar Jackson, is now poised to surpass “Bohemian Rhapsody” as the highest-grossing music biopic in history. It fended off “The Devil Wears Prada 2”, which earned $18 million in its third weekend, and the low-budget horror “Obsession”, already sixteen times its budget back. Viewed from Hollywood, the sustained dominance of a biopic about an artist who died over a decade ago signals a remarkable appetite for legacy acts in theatrical cinema.

That appetite is equally evident on the charts. Madonna, whose last album “Madame X” failed to produce a single Hot 100 entry, has returned to the Billboard tally for the first time in a decade, thanks to “Bring Your Love”, the lead single from her forthcoming “Confessions II”. The track features Sabrina Carpenter, who lands on a dance chart for the first time in her career. The Rolling Stones, meanwhile, have returned to the American top ten with a new smash, more than half a century after their first chart success. Even Michael Jackson himself is enjoying a chart renaissance: a dozen of his songs have reached new peaks on the Billboard Global 200 and Global Excl. U.S. charts, fuelled by interest in the biopic.

This pattern of veteran dominance extends beyond music. In Italy, commentators note that actresses over seventy and eighty are now commanding the screen in a way that seemed impossible just a few years ago. Meryl Streep, now seventy-six, leads this charge with the powerful performance of “The Devil Wears Prada 2”, a sequel that has proven a box-office juggernaut. The success of such films, alongside Demi Moore’s recent triumph in “The Substance”, suggests a paradigm shift in an industry long obsessed with youth. Audiences, it appears, are rewarding depth of talent and familiarity over novelty.

What unites these developments is a broader cultural recalibration. The music and film industries, which for decades have chased younger demographics, are discovering that the most reliable commercial bets are the artists and performers who have already proved their staying power. Nostalgia, once dismissed as a niche, has become a mainstream economic driver. For the icons of the late twentieth century, this second act offers not merely a revival but a redefinition of what it means to age in the public eye. The question now is whether this trend will endure or whether it is simply a post-pandemic hunger for the familiar.