Sony
“Michael Jacksons This Is It” album, featuring one new song, goes on sale starting today. The movie with the same title opens Oct. 28 in more than 90 countries, including 3,400 theaters in the U.S., according to Hollywood.com Box-Office.
More than 1,000 U.S. shows were sold out as of Oct. 22, according to the online ticket vendor Fandango.com. Cinemas in London, Sydney, Bangkok and Tokyo also reported sellouts, according to Sony Corp., which is releasing the film and the album. In the U.K., sales topped those of “Harry Potter” and “The Lord of the Rings” at the Vue Entertainment Ltd. chain.
“Its a true phenomenon,” said Tim Richards, chief executive officer of London-based Vue, whose cinema near the O2 Arena, where Jackson was scheduled to perform a series of comeback concerts, is among those that sold out.
Jacksons work may be prized more after his death than it was in life, said Robert Sillerman, CEO of CKX Inc., the New York-based operator of Graceland, Elvis Presleys Tennessee home, and co-producer of “American Idol.”
“In death, people remember the best of somebody,” Sillerman said. “Certainly that is turning out to be the case in Elvis and the Beatles. I think it will turn out to be the case in Michaels situation.”
Jackson died at age 50 on June 25 in Los Angeles of a drug overdose, three weeks before the concerts were set to begin. Sony, the singers music label, won a bidding war for a documentary film built around footage compiled during rehearsals, agreeing to pay $60 million, according to court documents.
Ticket Sales
The film may generate $300 million to $400 million in global ticket sales, said Jeff Bock, a box-office analyst for Los Angeles-based researcher Exhibitor Relations Co. U.S. sales in the first five days may be $55 million to $60 million, said Jeffrey Hartke, an analyst with Los Angeles-based Hollywood Stock Exchange, which forecasts film performance.
The two-disc album, with the new track “This is It,” as well as “Billie Jean,” “Smooth Criminal” and “Thriller,” may sell 200,000 to 500,000 copies in the U.S., according to Silvio Pietroluongo, director of sales charts at Billboard magazine. The suggested retail price of $17.98 has been marked down to $9.99 at Amazon.com Inc.
The releases may help dent the hundreds of millions of dollars in debt the entertainer ran up during his lifetime.
Paying Off Debt
The promoter recouped about $36 million it invested in Jacksons canceled tour from the $60 million Sony paid for rehearsal footage, according to one of the people.
The estate will use proceeds from the movie and the album to reduce Jacksons debt, said another person, who declined to be identified because the matters are private.
A spokesman for Los Angeles-based AEG confirmed the profit split between the estate and the promoter. Lois Najarian, a spokeswoman for Sony Music, declined to comment.
James Bates, a spokesman for the estate with Sitrick & Co., declined to comment on the arrangements. The singer died owing about $400 million, the Associated Press has estimated.
Tokyo-based Sony will likely see little profit from the film until it is released on DVD, said Daniel Ernst, an analyst with Hudson Square Research in New York who recommends the shares and doesnt own them.
Quarterly Lift
“Its hard to imagine that it has much if any measurable impact on Sony,” Ernst said. “Should the DVD perform well, we could see it giving Sony Pictures a bit of a lift in the quarter it comes out.”