It was fitting that this could not be an ordinary premiere. At 1am, a specially-invited UK audience became one of the first in the world to watch a film showing Michael Jackson’s final weeks.
JLS Attend UK Premiere of This Is It:
Then, at 4am, the public were allowed in for the first screenings – a weird time, by any standards, to be going to the pictures.
The timing was all part of the distributor Sony’s strategy of making the film, This Is It, a cinematic event rather than another run of the mill release.
And while it was the early hours in London, it was 6pm in Los Angeles – where the Jackson brothers Jermaine, Marlon, Randy and Tito turned out – and 10am in Seoul as 19 cities hosted simultaneous premieres.
In London there was occasional whooping, some cheering and much applause for a film that was far from a warts and all documentary but showed the perfectionist Jackson doing what he did best – singing and dancing.
The film, distilled from 120 hours of rehearsal footage ahead of his planned 50 gigs at London’s O2, could not disguise how strikingly thin and boney he was in the months up to his death.
Given the hour, it was not surprising that Leicester Square was not quite heaving with Jackson fans.
The time also affected the celebrity count. Organisers may well have been disappointed at a list that took in Lemar, JLS, Harry Connick Jnr, Westlife, Peter Andre, Mel B, Abbey Clancy and Paul ‘Wherever I Lay My Hat’ Young.
Source: Gaurdian
