Shockingly, it worked - and they'll likely be able to quadruple that.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a huge Michael Jackson fan, and I fully understand that he's an international icon. I just couldn't imagine a documentary-style movie about a dead entertainer making that much money.
Well, I was dead wrong.
In it's first five days, the film pulled in $101 million worldwide. $68 million was from overseas alone - including $10.4 million in Japan, $6.3 million in Germany, $5.8 million in France, and $3.2 million in China.
Of course, now Sony is extending the farewell performance film beyond its planned two-week run.
It's even being rumored that this film may gross more than the tour ever would have. Sounds like the big Michael Jackson payday has arrived.
You couldn't image it--seriously? If you were watching how MJ dominated the music charts stateside and overseas June through September, you wouldn’t have been so surprised about the movie. If MJ were alive when the documentary was released, perhaps the current financial windfall would have been far off, but then you'd have to look at historical data like how many people watched the TV version of his life story. He probably would have made the same amount over a longer period of time be it the tour, the movie or even merchandise. However, MJ’s death multiplied and escalated his value exponentially. The movie will definitely out do the tour. Sad to admit, but until his death, MJ was irrelevant to the American audience for sure (movie and music ticket sales prove that). People in the U.S. had forgotten about or disregarded MJ until he died. The movie reminded many why he was so great and why they were fans (for those who fell off before “Bad” or after his trial). If anything the movie did for him what he could not accomplish while living, which was to be remembered, forgiven, loved and revered again....MJ won’t be out of our system for a while to come. We feel bad that we abandoned him and exchanged him for Chris Brown, Neyo and Usher. Since his passing, I can’t go a day without hearing someone playing MJs music or seeing an image of him somewhere. It’s funny that even hard core Hip Hop heads and rockers now have MJ in their music mix. In comparison, the newer artists have nothing on MJ. We see that now and wish MJ were here so we could make up for all the time we lost playing around with wanna be artists. The movie is his last great concert (not life story) and that’s why it was so well received. I went twice just in case I missed something cool. This concert WAS it, the best ever! MJ brought down the house and the $101M+ is just our standing ovation.
ReplyDeleteThe numbers don't surprise me at all, Michael Jackson was not only the King of Pop, but also the king of every number scale he ecounters... Dead or Alive and more so dead than alive as records show for any legend. I thought those numbers were actually a bit low but as time goes on like you said, theyve extended the time frames so they will add up!! - Jason Lee
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