Michael's Incredible Achievements in 2009
Even though he isn’t here with us anymore, Michael Jackson continues to be a guaranteed superstar. He’s made some incredible achievements this year. Here are the facts!
This Is It – the concerts
Over one million people would have attended in total. Randy Phillips, president and chief executive of AEG Live, stated that the first 10 dates alone would have earned the singer approximately $79 million. Originally only 10 concerts were announced, however public demand resulted in a 50 date sold out residency. Ticket sales broke several records and AEG Live stated that Jackson could have sold more dates. Jackson's album sales increased following the announcement. The figures speak for themselves — 360,000 tickets sold in 18 hours during the pre sale, that is 20,000 tickets per hour, 33 tickets per minute! Demand was so great for the Jackson shows, Ticketmaster was struck with technical problems due to the high traffic. Among the records This Is It has broken: The biggest audience ever to see an artist in one city, the most amount of people to attend a series of arena shows and fastest ticket sales in history. Barring an unlikely non-sell out to any of the shows, the 50 shows would have more than doubled Prince’s previous record of 21 sold-out concerts at the O2 Arena.
This Is It – the movie
Despite originally being set for October 30, the film's release date was rescheduled for October 28, 2009 due to a strong demand by Jackson's fans. The film was given a wide worldwide release and a limited two-week theatrical run from October 28, to November 12, 2009 (which was later extended until December 03, 2009). Tickets went on sale a month early on September 27, 2009, to satisfy a high anticipated demand; to date, the film has broken advance ticket sales records for a movie. According to Reuters, hundreds of screenings in North America had been sold out, a month before the film's October 28 opening.
Among the cities with the strongest sales were Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston and New York. Records were also set in Japan, where more than $1 million in tickets were sold on the first day they were available. In London, fans bought more than 30,000 tickets on the first day, eclipsing the advance interest in the "Harry Potter" and "The Lord of the Rings" films, which were wildly popular in Britain. Record sales were also reported in Holland, Sweden, Belgium and New Zealand.
The film was released to mainly positive reviews from both critics and Jackson fans; the film's portrayal of Jackson and his performances were generally praised, while criticism mainly consisted of both critics and fans having felt that the film was made just to profit off Jackson's death and that Jackson wouldn't have wanted the film released because he was a "perfectionist". In the film's opening weekend it grossed over $23 million - in the United States alone - making the film number one at the box office and making it the fifth highest-grossing Halloween debut. The film's worldwide revenue gross was in total $252.4 million during its theatrical run making it the highest grossing documentary or concert movie of all time. This Is It was shown in 3,481 theaters wordwide.
Album sales for 2009, both US and globally
- Jackson Sells 24,800,000 albums in 2009 including Jackson 5 material, Motown, and Sony albums.
- Sony shipped 30,000,000 albums in 2009 while Motown shipped 1,500,000
- Jackson sold 9,000,000 albums in the US which makes him the best selling act this year.
- Jackson was the biggest selling musical act in the US, UK, Europe, Japan, and Globally.
- MJ's Global sales were huge and outpaced the nearest competition by over double. (#2 were The Beatles who sold 11 million albums this year vs Jackson's 24.8 million).
MJJCommunity / Thanks Assandra!