LOS ANGELES — Michael Jackson is proving popular at the box office.
Tickets for the late singer’s upcoming film documentary, “Michael Jackson: This Is It,” were snatched up in record time when sales began on Sunday, the Associated Press reports.
According to Sony Pictures, 30,000 tickets were sold in the first 24 hours in London, while $1 million worth of tickets were sold in Japan within the same time period.
Advance screenings also fared well, with all 3,000 tickets for a Los Angeles show selling out within two hours on Sunday.
The concert film, which opens Oct. 28 to the general public for a limited two-week run, will offer fans a rare, behind-the-scenes look at Jackson as he rehearsed for his sold-out concerts that would have taken place over the summer at London’s O2 Arena. The film is drawn from more than one hundred hours of behind-the-scenes footage, featuring Jackson between April and May as he rehearsed for his comeback shows. Audiences will be given an inside look at the King of Pop as he creates and perfects his final show.
“This film is Michael’s gift to his fans,” the film’s director, Kenny Ortega, previously said in a statement. “As we began assembling the footage for the motion picture we realized we captured something extraordinary, unique and very special. It’s a very private, exclusive look into a creative genius’s world. For the first time ever, fans will see Michael as they have never seen him before – this great artist at work. It is raw, emotional, moving and powerful footage that captures his interactions with the ‘This Is It’ collaborators that he had personally assembled for this once in a lifetime project.”
A two-disk album featuring a new song, “This Is It,” will be released on Oct. 27 to coincide with the movie’s advance screening debut in cities around the world, including Los Angeles, New York, Rio de Janeiro, London, Berlin and Seoul.
