Part ThirtyTwo - The TII Movie Deal

On October 27th 2009 the “This Is It” movie went into the cinema’s worldwide. But before it was released fans, familie and friends seemed to be devided into two camps. On one hand we had a group who where against the release of the movie. These people planned all kinds of actions for the premiere.

There were talks that there would be people walking around with a golden casket, people raising money for billboards, people handing out flyers etc, there were even people advising others not to go see the movie. Hence they even blamed people who did want to see the movie and tell these people stuff like: “Well enjoy looking at a man walking towards his death” and “Go and enjoy your popcorn.” This all because these people felt that Michael didn’t want us to see the rehearsels and because they feel AEG is also responsable for Michael’s murder. But i do agree on the point they made that Michael didn’t want us to see the rehearsels because he wanted us to see the shows.

To me it really didn’t matter why they would plan actions like this because i found it was wrong to do back than and i still don’t agree with them for doing and saying the things they did. They should have shown more respect towards the people who wanted to see the movie. Because there were people out there who wanted to see Michael one more time and say goodbye to Michael by going to see the movie, pay their last respects and honor the man they admired and loved no matter what. This group didn’t want Michael’s last work to be for nothing and go to waist. To be honest I belonged to the group that went to the cinema to go and see Michael in the TII Movie.

Eventhough this where just rehearsels i was blown away from what i got to see. Sometimes i wanted to reach out to the screen and touch Michael. To me he looked happy to be on the stage again and see him enjoy making Music and dance. It also proves to me what i already thought and that was that in no way Michael was an addict around the time of his death. I realize very well that this movie was edited, but you can’t put a smile on somebody’s face during editing. Instead of getting some closeur i got more and more confused, and i wondered how was it possible that he was gone? It was just imposible that the man i saw on the bigscreen died just like that. . I was now more convinced that my first thoughts about Michael being killed on purpose where right .

One of the biggest misconceptions is the movie deal “the Estate” and AEG made. People think the way the profits would be devided is a scam and that the 90% for the estate and 10% for AEG is wrong, because Columbia pictures wich is the movie devision of Sony would get the first 135 million dollars. This realy isn’t strange, wierd, illegal or whatever people want to call this deal. Columbia Pictures isn’t a philantrophic movement it’s a business, and just like any other business out there they are out there to make profits. As harsh as it sounds that’s how it was in the past, that’s how it is today and that is how it will always be in the future.

Columbia Pictures bought the rights for the rehearsels video’s and they payed 60million dollars for it. So the other 75million dollar that is put on top of it is to pay the people who worked on making this movie like production costs, technicians, editors etc. There is also the promotion they had to do, making posters buying commercial time etc. I often have the idea that not to many people get it how much money these kind of things all costs. So in my eyes as unreasonable it might sound to some of the fans it’s only fair that Colombia Pictures at least earn back the money they have invested.

The “This Is It” movie made 252 million dollars WorldWide. Minus the 135 million dollars for Columbia Pictures there was 117 million dollars to divede between AEG and “The Estate”. AEG got 10% of that 117 million that equals an amount of 11.7 millions for AEG and 105.3 million dollars for “The Estate”. Also keep in mind that this is all gonna be out on DVD and Blue Ray as well wich doesn’t bring anymore money in the pockets of Columbia Pictures cause everything that is going to be earned by these sales will go to “The Estate” and AEG. When you keep all this in the back of your minds there is now way on earth you can say “the Estate” got a bad deal, in the end it was the estate that benifited the most of the “This Is It” movie. And isn’t that what we all wanted, “The Estate” as the big winner in this deal?

When you look at the contract between Michael and AEG that they made for the “This Is IT” concerts, you will find out that this is the same kind of deal as was made for the “This Is It” movie deal. You can read on the second page subjest 4 Artist compensation of that contract that Michael would also get 90% and AEG would get 10% of the profits from the concerts. http://www.radaronline.com/sites/default/files/AEG%20contract.pdf This means after AEG got paid for all the money they upfronted to make these shows happen than the split of 90% for Michael and 10% for AEG was going to happen.

I know not many people do want to read about the contracts stuff etc, many of the fans just seem to just go by what they hear and not by what might be written in these kind of Legal papers. But when you really wanna talk about things like this it means you also have to take a look at the bigger picture of it all. You just can sit there and say well i draw my own conclusions by what i’ve heard without having checked the facts, and you most certainly can’t attack fans who do investigate and point things like this out to others.

I’m not saying i’m happy with Sony being involved in this all. But me not being happy about that is based on my personal feelings i have against Sony, just like most other fans feel towards Sony. And even though i would have loved to have seen that it was another company involved than Columbia Pictures aka Sony, i can’t dismiss the facts about this deal.