Did you think it was tasteless when video of Michael Jackson, ominously labeled his “final rehearsals” and “his last performance,” popped up online? We thought it was creepy (though not nearly as bad as the pictures of him, after his death, being driven off in an ambulance), but we ignored it. Some things are best left unwatched and forgotten. Unless you’re Columbia Pictures, in which case, you’ll make a movie out of said footage.

Columbia has paid million for the rights to create a film, due out by Halloween that will feature Jackson’s rehearsals (over 100 hours of footage was shot in preparation for his comeback tour) as well as, get ready for it,  product tie-ins and merchandising, with most of the proceeds from the film going toward erasing the Jackson estate’s debt. What do you want to bet this Halloween deadline means they will do some big re-release of Thriller to show before the movie? The footage was shot by AEG Live, the promoters of Jackson’s comeback tour. In a quote that sounds about as sensitive as something Joe Jackson would say, AEG CEO Randy Phillips said, “If we all do our jobs right, we could probably raise hundreds of millions of dollars just on the stuff we have worldwide and then the estate could eradicate its debt.”

We believe in honoring the man and his life, but cashing in on what we now know to be the final moments the man spent on stage just to help pay off his debts is morbid. And the tie-ins! Don’t get us started, we’re still dealing with the shilling disaster known as Sex and The City: The Movie. The only thing standing in the way of the film is Katherine Jackson – she will attend a court hearing (story of her life these days) next week to raise any objections to the film, but considering she is the one in charge of the debt-ridden estate right now, we doubt she’ll have any. [Photo: GettyImages]

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