This Is It

Despite the shocking stories about the role drugs and doctors played in death of Michael Jackson four months ago at the age of 50, the music industry wants the world to remember him as a healthy, happy man. That's why Sony Pictures paid $60 million for 120 hours of rehearsal footage of the singer's planned London concerts. The result is This Is It, a 112-minute film opening around the world today for a two-week run.

This Is It will be shown in 18,000 cinemas internationally, including 2,400 in China. "I'm not sure if that's a record, but it's more than we've ever had," Jeff Blake, Sony's chairman for worldwide marketing, told The New York Times.

Since his death, Michael Jackson has sold 5.5 million albums, and more than nine million of his songs have been downloaded legally from such sites as iTunes. The continued hunger for Jackson's music suggests that fans will flock to the film. This Is It is about what might have been.