News

Thriller: The Full Length Movie?

12:52 p.m. · October 29, 2010 · by Kali Holloway

Adding to the overwhelming evidence that Hollywood has run completely out of new ideas, several movie studios are reportedly engaged in a bidding war for rights to a full-length feature based on Thriller – a 27-year-old (that’s “pushing 30,” as they say) video beloved by us all but not really in much need of a do-over. Film blog Deadline.com reports that choreographer/director Kenny Ortega (he choreographed Dirty Dancing and directed High School Musical) is attached to direct and that the film will have a budget of less than $50 million. The site also reports that while the plot is mostly secret for now, it “has to do with the song's folklore, involving Vincent Price and the town he grew up in.” Also per Deadline, the studio leading the charge to own this thing is GK Films, headed up by one Peter Schlessel, who sealed the deal for rights to This is It! for Sony Pictures Entertainment. That movie made $300 million worldwide, so it’s easy to see why there’s so much interest in another feature focused on Michael Jackson, World’s Money Makingest Dead Celebrity.

Deadline also reports on scuttlebutt that Cirque du Soleil is making plans to do two shows based on MJ’s catalog of songs, and that famed producer Ivan Reitman and partner Tom Pollock are hoping to shoot a film about Michael Jackson’s childhood years. [Deadline via CoS]