When Michael Jackson died 10 years ago, his estate had two major goals: erase the singer's debts and restore his image as an artist. “We had to show the real Michael, the real artist, and not the tabloid sensation,” co-executor John Branca told AP.
In this Tuesday, June 18, 2019 photo, Entertainment and corporate lawyer John Branca, the co-executor of Michael Jackson's estate, poses in his office next to an artwork presented to him from Sony Music commemorating the sale of 100 million copies of Michael Jackson's album "Thriller," at the law firm of Ziffren Brittenham LLP in Los Angeles.
After seven years of little contact, Jackson rehired Branca on June 17, 2009, while the singer was rehearsing for his would-be “This Is It” comeback tour. Branca left on a vacation to Mexico, where on June 25 he would get a phone call telling him Jackson was dead at age 50. It was then, he said, that “all hell broke loose.”
“The estate has been incredibly well run, the numbers speak for themselves,” said Zack O’Malley Greenburg, a senior editor of media and entertainment at Forbes who has reported extensively on the estate. “He’s out-earned pretty much every living entertainer since his death.” There were inevitable messes. In the wake of Jackson’s death, a flood of legal claims came against his estate, some legitimate, several ridiculous, but all required by law to be taken seriously.
The result was “This Is It,” the movie drawn from the rehearsals that brought in $261.2 million in worldwide box office, became the highest-grossing concert film and music documentary of all time, and proved that Jackson’s value was once again sky-high.“As it turned out,” he said, “we got a lot of good shots along the road.”
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