[Update: We now have a new featurette for This Is It]
This will certainly make all of the hardcore Michael Jackson fans, who are sitting on pins and needles in anticipation of the his post-mortem rehearsal movie This Is It, very happy. Someone (read: AEG or Sony) leaked a clip from the upcoming movie and oddly enough, no one has been asked to take it down and the video is still available on YouTube. So, chances are the studios want it out there and that it’s viral marketing.
Michael Jackson does look like he’s on top of his game preparing for the tour. Everything I read about his last work says he was meticulous about practicing for his shows and liked to have full creative control. It still amazes me how he could talk so mousy in public and in front of cameras, but put a microphone in the man’s hand and his voice drops a couple of octaves. It also appears that he was breaking out his old dance moves from the videos for the song he is performing.
You can watch the clip below after the jump. Thanks to Cinema Blend for the heads up.
THIS IS IT CLIP
THIS IS IT FEATURETTE
The part where he chases the girl across the stage by doing the “leg-drag-run” while slinging his hand back and forth is straight from one of his 80’s videos. We posted a slightly longer video clip a couple of weeks ago and Michael’s voice was on point. I’m sure the whole concert would have been enjoyable to listen to but unfortunately he had so much controversy surrounding him that it distracts from his accomplishments.
What doesn’t make sense to me though is how hard they are pushing the marketing for this film. Just last week AEG came out with laughable prediction that This Is It would make $250 million in just five days; Sony, of course, denied those predictions. When the buzz around Terminator Salvation started heading south, the studios began running a massive marketing campaign that included releasing a lot of unneeded video clips of the film. Turns out, the movie wasn’t the heavy hitter they thought it would be and the over-marketing was them trying to make up for it.
I wonder if AEG and Sony are concerned that This Is It will suffer the same fate? If they are confident that “everyone” will go see this film then why not hold off on all the clips and just let word of mouth or standard marketing run its course? I know AEG and Sony are saying “they aren’t trying to make money” from this endeavor but I still don’t believe them.
What do you think about the newly released clip from This Is It?
This Is It moonwalks onto screens October 28th, 2009.
Update Source: Collider
