娱乐英语新闻:Hollywood studios bid for Michael Jackson's rehearsal footage

LOS ANGELES, July 20 (Xinhua) -- Major Hollywood movie studios found themselves in a frenzied bidding war over the weekend to acquire film rights to late pop star Michael Jackson's last rehearsals footage, with Sony Pictures emerging as the front-runner, a report said on Monday.

    AEG Live, the concert promoter behind Jackson's planned 50-concert tour at London's O2 Arena, offered the rights to some 1,200 hours of rehearsal footage to all the major movie studios last week, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Michael Jackson performs during a Victory Tour concert in Toronto, in this October 5, 1984 file photo

Sony, Fox, Paramount and Universal submitted bids, but Sony's aggressive 50-million-dollar offer, coupled with the fact that its music division controls distribution of Jackson's output as an adult solo performer and retains the right to block a competing studio from using his songs, put the studio in the strongest position.

    The plan is for a movie to be theatrically released in October, according to the report.

Michael Jackson performs during a Victory Tour concert in Toronto, in this October 5, 1984 file photo

Sony also controls "sync" rights to most of Jackson's songs. Such rights are involved whenever recorded music is used in combination with visual images in a production, an important component in the property's future DVD release.

    Meanwhile, AEG were also selling the broadcast rights for a prime-time TV special using staging and choreography Jackson created for the "This Is It" concerts, prompting fevered competition among networks over the weekend.

    The TV special, which features a superstar ensemble that might include Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, would be broadcast in September, according to the report.