Mark Binelli

Well, the first order of business is to start generating any income.

The London shows obviously had been part of that plan before he died.

That's off the table with Jackson gone.

But there was rehearsal footage of him preparing for the shows.

And so they decided to cut it together into a concert film.

The film was called This Is It.

It premiered in theaters just a few months after his death.

And the movie was a huge hit, grossing somewhere in the neighborhood of $260 million, making it, you know, one of the, if not the most successful concert films ever.

And as Billboard magazine pointed out shortly after that, it became pretty clear that Jackson was worth more dead than alive.

Explain that.

Well, you know, the living Michael Jackson had this habit of doing things that reminded people of everything that made them feel somewhat queasy about him.

So with him gone, it's a morbid thing to say, but there was no one around anymore to give...

problematic interviews or to dangle babies over balconies or do anything that could get in the way of people just loving the songs in a simple and uncomplicated way.

Exactly.

So now with the success of this concert film, the estate realizes they can control the story.

And so, you know, they do a number of the normal things you would do after an artist dies.

They mine the vaults for unreleased material.

They reissue old records with bonus tracks, things like that, but then they start doing other things.

One of the first big successes after the concert film is they make a deal with Cirque du Soleil.

They build a whole show around his music, and as you would imagine, it's a Cirque du Soleil show, so it's about acrobats, it's about visuals, it's about music, it's not about allegations of sexual abuse or anything controversial.