WATCHING THE DOUGH RISE

Who will get the rights to the rehearsal footage of Michael Jackson’s “comeback” concert tour? Whoever can raise the most dough, of course. So far it is rumored that Sony bid $50 million. Universal, Warner Bros, Paramount, and 20th Century Fox have seen the footage but it is not known if any of them bid or, if they did, how much the bids were.
Seems that Sony may have an edge because Sony Music distributes Jackson’s music. Sony has an equal partnership with his estate in Sony/ATV Music Publishing.
AEG and Jackson’s estate are negotiating (read: who will raise the dough higher and faster) with several TV networks and pay-per-view channels to produce a special that “would be a stage show featuring Jackson’s music and dancing”. I don’t really get the concept but I’m sure it will be really swell entertainment, and very lucrative. Rumor is, the selling price for this special is going to be in the “tens of millions”. The only station mentioned so far is NBC, but nothing is final.
Of course, all of this will help AEG recoup the money, estimated at about $30 million, that Jackson’s untimely death cost them. There are people, though, who bought tickets and would just as soon keep them (as souvenirs I guess) rather then turn them in for a refund. In reality, there was also the possibility that Jackson’s health wasn’t what it would have needed to be to complete this tour. Then AEG would not only have had to refund the tickets, they would have had a mob of angry fans to deal with.
There is one thing about this “rehearsal footage” that isn’t very clear. We’ve seen about a 30 seconds of it. How much more is there? A lot? A little? No more?
Between books, movies, television specials, the late Michael Jackson appears to worth more now than ever before.

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