In 2009 Michael Jackson announced 50 concerts in London. For a lot of fans, that felt like a goodbye. Fifty shows and then, surely, a long and well-earned rest.
The man who would know best says that’s not how Michael saw it at all.
Kenny Ortega was the director of those shows, the ones later captured in the film “This Is It.” He spent those final months right beside Michael, planning every step. And afterward, he spoke about what Michael actually had in mind for the years ahead.
The London run, Ortega said, was “not a retirement plan.” Not even close.
Michael rehearsing “Thriller” for the London shows
This is him getting ready for those concerts. Watch how sharp he still is, and remember this was meant to be a beginning, not an ending.
According to Ortega, the plan after London was a final world tour that would run about two years. A proper farewell to the whole world, city by city. But even that wasn’t the part that makes fans sit up.
Michael wanted to make movies. Big ones.
One idea was to take maybe his most famous creation and blow it up to full length for the cinema. He wanted to turn “Thriller” into a complete feature film.
The short film that started it all, “Thriller”
Here’s the original. Imagine this stretched into a whole movie on the big screen, and you’ll get why the idea is so exciting.
The “Thriller” short film already played like a mini-movie, with a real story and that famous dance. Michael wanted to grow it into a true feature. Ortega said that as of 2010 the project was still in “very, very early stages.” Sadly it was never made.
And there was a second film on the list. Michael and Ortega had talked about a musical remake of an old gangster story called “Legs Diamond,” based on a real mobster from the 1920s. Two films and a two-year tour. He was not slowing down.
Ortega also shared one small, human detail that stuck with him. He said he would miss Michael’s phone calls, the ones that came “at four in the morning,” when a new idea just couldn’t wait until sunrise.
A look at the “This Is It” concerts Michael was building
This trailer shows the kind of show he was putting together. It’s the closest any of us got to seeing what came next.
Watching it now, knowing all the plans that sat just beyond those concerts, hits in a tender way. For Michael, London wasn’t the end of the road. It was where the next chapter was supposed to begin.
Press play and see the man who, in his director’s words, was only getting started.