There’s a bidding war going on for big-screen rights to Michael Jackson’s final rehearsal footage, and according to reports in Variety and the Los Angeles Times, Sony Pictures is close to sealing the deal with an offer of over $50 million. AEG Entertainment reportedly has up to 80 hours of footage from Jackson’s rehearsals for his planned “This Is It!” comeback concerts, which he continued working on through the day before his June 25 death. In addition, the feature film — which could be out as soon as this fall — would reportedly include interstitial videos shot for the concert series. High School Musical director Kenny Ortega, who helped plan the concerts and shot the footage, is rumored as the feature film’s potential director; he’s also set to direct “a prime-time television special based around staging and choreography that Jackson personally created” for the concerts, according to the Times.

Given the quality of the brief rehearsal clip that was released early this month (below), this sounds to me like a movie worth watching. One of the saddest things about Jackson’s untimely passing is that it robbed us all of the chance to see what he had planned for those London dates — something that a well-done film edited down from that mountain of rehearsal footage might help address. But what do you think? Would you pay to see a movie based on Michael Jackson’s last rehearsals, wait until it hit DVD, or skip it altogether? Tell us why in the comments section.

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