Marketing On September 9, 2009, the film's official theatrical movie poster was released. On September 10, 2009, it was reported that
MTV's
Video Music Awards, which at the time had already announced that they would honor Jackson at the show, would premiere the film's first, and only, trailer. Along with
Janet Jackson's tribute to Michael, the trailer of the film premiered at the
2009 MTV Video Music Awards. On September 12, 2009, it was reported that a "secret Michael Jackson [promotional music] single is being produced" to promote the film, at which the film would have, at the time, been released the following month. It was reported that Jackson had recorded the song for release with his planned summer tour but after his death, it was shelved until producers in Los Angeles remixed the vocals with an orchestral accompaniment. On October 9, it was confirmed that the song would debut online the following Monday at midnight, receiving its world premiere on MichaelJackson.com. On September 21, 2009, Sony released a 45-second clip of Jackson rehearsing his performance for "
Human Nature" and also released stills from the video clip. As part of a print marketing campaign for the film,
Entertainment Weekly magazine did a cover story of the film for the magazine's October 16, 2009 issue, to collide with the film's release for that same month. Also as part of promotion for the film,
Entertainment Weekly released 8 "never before seen" movie stills from the film. On October 21, a clip of Jackson rehearsing "The Way You Make Me Feel" was released. On October 21, a 2-minute featurette of the film was released. In September 2009, Sony launched "This-Is-It-Fans.com", which allowed fans to sign up for an 'alert' so that they can be able to take part in 'Michael Jackson's This Is It mosaic', in which fans could upload photos to the website, beginning September 21 and running to September 30, and the completed mosaic would be posted online on October 22, six days before the film's release. On September 24, 2009, MTV announced, after the success, the project proved with
New Moon, that they will allow MTV registered users, to "watch and comment on any scene in the film's already released trailer". MTV described the project as "essentially [being] an in-video graphical overlay that allows users to comment on the video as it plays and review comments from other users.
Ticket sales On September 25, 2009, lines opened at the courtyard outside the
Nokia Theatre in
downtown Los Angeles. Lenticular commemorative tickets were made available to the first 500 people in line, as well as those who traded in tickets purchased for the original tour. Jeff Labrecque of
En commented, "Three months after Michael Jackson's death, I'm still surprised by the passion of his fans." Bridget Daly of Hollyscoop commented on the waiting time for tickets that, she could "expect nothing less" from Jackson's fans. On September 27, 2009, the first day of ticket sales, all 3,000 tickets to the advance screenings of the film had "sold out within two hours." CinemaBlend reported that over 160 showings had sold out. Reuters.com, stated that "hundreds of screenings in North America have already sold out, a month before the film's October 28 opening." According to MovieTickets.com, sales of tickets to the film have "accounted for more than 82 percent of all the tickets sold at the site today [Monday, September 28, 2009]." CinemaBlend.com described the sale of tickets on MovieTickets.com as being "fairly significant"—but remarked that "this is after all, just a concert documentary." It was reported that over 80 percent of tickets sold on Fandango.com were for this film. It was also reported that the film had "accounted for some 80% of all online ticketing in the US within its first 24 hours of sales, dominating presales compared with such upcoming titles as
Avatar and
The Twilight Saga: New Moon. Sony, confirmed that over 30,000 tickets were sold in the first 24 hours that tickets went on sale. Sony stated in a statement of the film's good ticket sale's that: "Staggering advance sales were reported in Australia, where tickets for ''Michael Jackson's This Is It
purchased through Village Cinemas exceeded the lifetime pre-sales of such blockbusters as Transformers and X-Men Origins: Wolverine''. Both Fandango.com and Movietickets.com are reported that more than 1,600 screenings had already been sold out, via online pre-sales, by October 15. In the United Kingdom, Vue Entertainment stated that they'd sold 64,000 tickets in the two-and-a-half weeks since ticket purchasing was made available, while Odeon Cinema stated that they'd had the sales of over 60,000 tickets by October 15. E! Online said of the film, based on its current record ticket selling, out-selling and making more revenue then
Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert that: "Last year, Disney billed Miley Cyrus'
Best of Both Worlds show as a one-week-only event. Then the film scored a $31 million opening weekend, and one week turned into 15. Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus became the top-grossing concert movie of all time. So far. While it's still early,
This Is It is on track to top Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus. During its first three days of sales, Fandango said, Jackson's film outpaced Cyrus' first three days by a wide three-to-one margin."
Record sales Stuart Boreman, Vue Entertainment's film buying director, stated that the film's sales of over 300,000 tickets in the period of 1 day (24 hours) had "broken
box office records" of having the "biggest ever one-day sales record" in the United Kingdom. Boreman stated: "I've never seen anything like it in the 25 years I have been film buying" and described the film's ticket sales as "a true phenomenon and sales show no sign of slowing down." It was reported that fans had lined up at the box office ticket counters throughout the city of Bangkok, Thailand and that by the end of the first day "all tickets for the first showings across Bangkok were sold out." It was also reported that there were "sell-outs at theaters in France" and that "thousands of fans lined up at The Grand Rex in Paris and quickly bought out the film's first screening there [...] Record-setting sales also were recorded in Germany [...] hundreds of fans lined up outside one theater in Munich at midnight to await the opening of the box office." A German exhibitor said of crowds of people lining up for tickets to the film, that: "Something like this [has] never happened before in Germany." Among other countries, "record sales" and "sell-outs" were also reported in The Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium and New Zealand. By October 27, Kinekor cinemas sold over 24,000 pre-sale tickets in South Africa, tripling the previous pre-sale record.
IMAX and release Despite the fact that
IMAX screenings are usually planned and booked months in advance by the film's movie distributors, Regal Entertainment Group, America's largest cinema chain, stated on September 30, that they would screen IMAX versions of the film at their cinemas. Regal stated that they are planning on making 25 of their IMAX locations available for the screening of the film when it opened to the public on October 28. On August 11, it was widely announced, and later confirmed, that the film would be released to theaters in October 2009, though at the time no specific date was released or confirmed. When confirmed it was reported that the film was set be released worldwide on October 30, 2009. Later in August it was announced that the film's release date was rescheduled two days early for October 28. Sony stated that the film's release date was moved up by two days due to an 'overwhelming demand' for the film." China only allows 20 major foreign films to be released in the country every year on a revenue-sharing basis. Li Chow, manager of Sony Pictures Releasing International's stated that Sony will give the movie as wide a release as possible because of Jackson's popularity in China. ==Controversies==