Michael Jackson: The Movie

And you won’t have long to wait to see it, either – according to reports, Sony is about to buy 80 hours of rehearsal footage from AEG for $50 million, and it’ll be turned into a movie by High School Musical director Kenny Ortega by the end of the year.

There’s nothing wrong with that, of course – it’s not like one of the last things that Michael Jackson did before he died was record a career-tarnishing new version of the iconic Thriller video in 3D so that audiences could use it to see exactly how much he’d squandered his life on drugs and needless cosmetic surgery procedures. Was it? Was it, Variety?

Sony Pictures is close to a deal to make a feature film on Michael Jackson drawing on the 80 hours of rehearsal footage filmed for concerts Jackson was preparing to perform in London. The film will feature at least three videos, including an alternative version of Jackson’s “Thriller,” which were shot to be interstitial programming during the concerts. The footage was meant to play in 3-D.