Last Dance

A team of editors distilled the footage to three-and-a-half hours, and Phillips — in conjunction with the executors of Jackson's estate, John Branca and John McClain — agreed to pursue a possible movie. Ortega was asked if he'd be willing to direct. ''I really didn't want to,'' he says. ''I thought, Am I going to be able to sit in a room looking at images of Michael? Am I going to fall apart? But the question kept coming back to me: Who else is going to do it? This is sacred.''

Over the course of several days in mid-July, the heads of four major studios — Paramount, Universal, Twentieth Century Fox, and Sony — were brought into AEG's edit bay to see 15 minutes of the footage. An intense and protracted bidding war erupted. And ultimately, Sony — whose sibling company controls the rights to Jackson's existing catalog — won the auction, paying $60 million for the rights to produce and release a film. ''You have no idea how competitive it was,'' says Pascal. ''I had other companies calling me saying, 'We should cut these people out and do a joint venture.' People were crazed.''

At that point, the task of crafting a movie began, and no one wanted to waste a moment. ''At first they wanted to get the film out by Michael's birthday, August 29,'' Ortega says. ''I said, 'No way.' They came back to me the next day and said, 'We'll give you Halloween' — which was actually okay. Halloween was Michael's favorite holiday.''

Over the next six weeks, working nearly around the clock, Ortega, Payne, Bearden, and the rest of their team pared the footage down to less than two hours. The goal, Ortega says, was to celebrate Jackson's creative genius, not to provide fodder for people's fascination with his death. ''There's enough of that out there,'' he says. Thus one of the most emotional and sensationalistic pieces of film — in which Ortega notified his cast and crew that Jackson was in the hospital, gathered everyone in a group prayer, and then learned of his death — was left on the cutting-room floor, though a fleeting moment from the prayer can be seen in the trailer. ''We could have made this a much more salacious film,'' says Phillips, who notes that additional footage will appear on the eventual DVD.

Nevertheless, some — including Jackson's sister La Toya, who recently spoke to Access Hollywood — have wondered if the singer would be comfortable with audiences getting such an unguarded look inside his creative process. They might ask as well whether Jackson, who was known as a perfectionist, would be pleased with the release on Oct. 12 of the single ''This Is It,'' a sentimental ballad based on material he co-wrote with Paul Anka in the early 1980s. (The film's companion album will be released Oct. 27, and is expected to be a blockbuster.) Ortega is confident Jackson would give This Is It his blessing: ''I know Michael, and I know why he wanted to do this. As long as the film is based on those reasons — letting his children see what he loved, giving something back to the fans who were so loyal through thick and thin, sharing his concern about the health of our planet — why wouldn't Michael be happy? He didn't intend not to finish this project. It was an accident.''

Jackson's last rehearsal wrapped just 14 hours before his death. Those who were there that day say that with less than three weeks left to go until opening night in London, Jackson left Staples Center that evening feeling confident and strong. ''We were walking to our cars at about 12:30,'' Phillips says. ''He put his arms around me, and in that little, lilting voice of his, he said, 'Thank you for getting me this far. I can take it from here. Now I know I can do this.' I think it was the first time that, in his heart and soul, he accepted that he could come back, and that he could be great again.''

Jackson gave his all during the rehearsals for This Is It, says choreographer Travis Payne: ''He wanted to do the best show the world had ever seen. This was to be a world party.'' And the party was to keep going after the 50 concerts at London's O2 arena, Ortega says. ''I think he looked at this as maybe his final curtain call in terms of touring, so the idea was to reach far beyond London. Michael would say, 'India, Japan — there are so many places, and I love the world, and I want to get out there.' He wanted to do films. We were talking about developing stuff for television. He certainly wasn't planning on retiring.''