Tween Justin Bieber fans lose control at NY mall

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. – New York police shut down a mall appearance by teen pop singer Justin Bieber (BEE'-ber) after thousands of young girls showed up and got a little too wild.

Nassau County police say girls and adults in the crowd of nearly 3,000 started pushing and shoving as they waited for the 15-year-old sensation to arrive Friday at the Roosevelt Field Mall in Garden City.

Five people were taken to hospitals with minor injuries.

Police arrested a vice president from Bieber's record label, Island Def Jam Records. They say he wasn't cooperating with attempts to disperse the crowd.

Some fans had camped out overnight for the event.

Bieber never made it into the building. He told WBLI radio that police turned him away.

Bieber's debut album, "My World," was released Tuesday.

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Information from: Newsday, http://www.newsday.com

Parker-Broderick surrogacy case jury breaks

ST. CLAIRSVILLE, Ohio – The jury in the trial of an Ohio police chief accused of breaking into the home of a woman who carried twins for Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick ended five hours of deliberations Friday without a verdict.

The jury in the case of suspended Martins Ferry Police Chief Barry Carpenter began deliberations about 4:30 p.m. and ended for the day five hours later. Deliberations are expected to resume Monday morning.

Carpenter is accused of taking items related to pregnancy and the surrogacy from the home and scheming with the police chief of a neighboring town to sell them to celebrity photographers.

Earlier Friday, a prosecutor in closing arguments said Carpenter abused his authority and tried to "blame it all on being a joke."

Carpenter testified Friday that he never discussed selling items from the home to paparazzi. He went into the woman's home after he saw a basement door open while on routine patrol and took a photo of a surrogacy file that contained two ultrasound pictures and of a plaster cast of a pregnant stomach. He says he showed the photo of the cast to paparazzi and to several other people.

When his lawyer asked if he was just "messing" with the photographers, Carpenter said "absolutely."

Assistant Attorney General Emily Laube argued to jurors that Carpenter never filed a police report about Ross' home.

Carpenter "abuses his authority ... and tries to blame it all on being a joke," she said.

Defense attorney Dennis McNamara said Carpenter made bad choice.

"Barry admits that he acted very stupidly, but denies that he acted criminally," he said.

Carpenter testified that he met with the photographers after being called by Police Chief Chad Dojack of Bridgeport.

"I walked up, and the first thing I told them is, 'You're wasting your time,'" Carpenter said.

He testified that he had looked inside the surrogacy file when he was in the home out of "general interest" and said he did not go through other personal items.

He said he never took anything out of the home.

Winfrey to announce Friday show will end in 2011

CHICAGO – "The Oprah Winfrey Show," an iconic broadcast that grew over two decades into a daytime television powerhouse and the foundation of a multibillion-dollar media empire, will end its run in 2011 after 25 seasons on the air, Winfrey's production company said Thursday night.

Winfrey plans to announce the final date for her show during a live broadcast on Friday, Harpo Productions Inc. said, bringing an end to what has been television's top-rated talk show for more than two decades, airing in 145 countries worldwide and watched by an estimated 42 million viewers a week in the U.S. alone.

A Harpo spokeswoman declined to comment Thursday on Winfrey's future plans except to say that "The Oprah Winfrey Show" will not move to cable television.

Winfrey, 55, is widely expected to start up a new talk show on OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, a much-delayed joint venture with Discovery Communications Inc. that is expected to debut in 2011. OWN is to replace the Discovery Health Channel and will debut in some 74 million homes. An OWN spokeswoman declined comment Thursday.

CBS Television Distribution, which distributes "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to more than 200 markets blanketing the United States, held out hope that it could continue doing business with Winfrey, perhaps producing a new show out of its studios in Los Angeles.

"We know that anything she turns her hand to will be a great success," the unit of CBS Corp. said in a statement. "We look forward to working with her for the next several years, and hopefully afterwards as well."

Winfrey's 24th season opened earlier this year with a bang, as she drew more than 20,000 fans to Chicago's Magnificent Mile on Michigan Avenue for a block party with the Black Eyed Peas.

She followed up with a series of blockbuster interviews — Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield, exclusives with singer Whitney Houston and ESPN's Erin Andrews, and just this week, former Alaska governor, GOP vice presidential candidate and best-selling author Sarah Palin.

Over the years, "The Oprah Winfrey Show" grew from a newcomer that chipped away at talk king Phil Donahue's dominance into a program that turned inspirational. The show covered a gamut that ranged from interviews with the world's most famous celebrities to an honest discussion about her weight struggles.

"As that show evolved, it really kind of dressed up the neighborhood of the daytime talk show," said Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University. "There was a seriousness to it, as though what she was doing was a calling and not just a television show."

In 1986, pianist-showman Liberace gave his final TV interview to Winfrey, just six weeks before he died. In a widely viewed prime-time special aired in 1993, Michael Jackson revealed he suffered from a skin condition that produces depigmentation.

Tom Cruise enthusiastically declared his affection for the much-younger Katie Holmes on the program in 2005 — and jumped on the couch to prove it.

In 2004, Winfrey unveiled her most famous giveaway, when nearly 300 members of the studio audience opened a gift box to find the keys to a new car inside. The stunt became a classic show moment as much for Oprah's reaction — "You get a car! You get a car! You get a car! Everybody gets a car!" — as its $7 million price tag.

The show also became a launching pad for Oprah's Book Club, and authors whose books were selected became best-sellers. The titles ranged from "Song of Solomon" and "Paradise" by Toni Morrison to Wally Lamb's "She's Come Undone" and Elie Wiesel's "Night."

For others, the selection backfired. "A Million Little Pieces" exploded in sales after Winfrey chose the James Frey memoir in fall 2005. Soon after, it was revealed as a fabricated tale of addiction and recovery, and Winfrey later chewed out Frey on her show.

"She's been a great inspiration, a great support for all the shifts in politics and social consciousness and consciousness in general," said hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. "I call her 'Queen of the New Consciousness' because she did so many things to change lives, the books that she promoted."

The loss of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" would be a blow to CBS Corp. because it earns a percentage of hefty licensing fees from TV stations that use it; the show is largely seen on ABC affiliates. On a conference call with analysts two weeks ago, CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves said the contract with the show runs through most of 2011 and "if there's a negative impact, it wouldn't hit us until '12."

"Oprah's been a force of media and there's really no person you can look to out there who you could say, `That's the heir apparent,'" said Larry Gerbrandt, an analyst for the firm Media Valuation Partners in Los Angeles. Gerbrandt noted many stations built their schedules around Winfrey's show and used it to promote other shows.

"It's a big loss, but not as huge as it would have been 10 years ago," he said. "However, it still commands the biggest audience and ABC station competitors are licking their chops."

Talk of the show's end often has accompanied impending contract negotiations for Winfrey. Before she signed her current contract in 2004, she had talked about quitting after the 2005-2006 season. As far back as 1995, she had called continuing "a difficult and important decision."

CBS continues to sell several top shows into syndication, including "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy." But many TV stations are struggling with falling advertising revenue and were unlikely to pay the same fees as in the past for Winfrey's show, which has seen ratings slip 7 percent from a year ago and saw its average viewership slip below 7 million last season.

Winfrey started her broadcasting career as a teenager in Nashville, Tenn., reading the news at WVOL. Two years later, Winfrey started co-anchoring news broadcasts on WTVF-TV in Nashville. In 1976 she moved to Baltimore to anchor newscasts at WJZ-TV before becoming host of the local talk show "People Are Talking."

In 1984, she relocated to Chicago to host WLS-TV's morning talk show "A.M. Chicago" — the show was became "The Oprah Winfrey Show" one year later. She set up Harpo the following year and her talk show went into syndication.

Powered by the show's staggering success, Winfrey built a wide-ranging media empire. Harpo Studios produces shows hosted by Dr. Phil McGraw and celebrity chef Rachael Ray, and O, The Oprah Magazine was the nation's 7th most popular magazine in the first half of 2009.

"I came from nothing," Winfrey wrote in the 1998 book "Journey to Beloved." "No power. No money. Not even my thoughts were my own. I had no free will. No voice. Now, I have the freedom, power, and will to speak to millions every day — having come from nowhere."

Earlier this year, Forbes scored Winfrey's net worth at $2.7 billion, even as the magazine knocked her from atop its list of the world's most powerful celebrities. The honor went to Angelina Jolie, but Winfrey was still No. 2 on the annual Celebrity 100 list — and the top earner at $275 million.

Janet Jackson: Michael in denial over drug problem

NEW YORK – Janet Jackson says she recognized her brother Michael's drug problem, and tried to help him, but that he rebuffed those attempts to intervene.

"You can't make 'em drink the water," Jackson told ABC News in an interview airing Wednesday.

When asked if her brother was in denial about his addiction, she replied, "Possibly."

"I wish he could answer this question for you and not me," she told ABC's Robin Roberts. "I felt that he was in denial."

She blames Dr. Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson's personal physician, for his death June 25.

Prosecutors in Los Angeles are weighing charges against Murray, who told police he administered a powerful anesthetic to the singer shortly before he died.

During the interview, the 43-year-old Janet Jackson spoke of her upcoming diet book, "True You," which chronicles her lifelong struggle to control her weight.

She has gained some mastery over her self-image, she said, after years of "just picking yourself apart all the time because you're so used to being kind of picked apart."

She said she hasn't seen "This Is It," the new documentary film spotlighting her late brother as he prepared for the concert tour that would've taken place last summer.

"I definitely won't, not right now," she said. "I don't know if I will ever see it."

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ABC is owned by the Walt Disney Co.

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On the Net:

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NY paparazzo testifies in Parker-Broderick case

ST. CLAIRSVILLE, Ohio – A paparazzo testified Tuesday that an Ohio police chief told him he had access to ultrasound photographs belonging to the woman who carried twins for Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick.

Justin Steffman of New York testified that suspended Martins Ferry Chief Barry Carpenter also said that he had access to a plaster cast of surrogate Michelle Ross' stomach, a contract between the woman and Parker and several documents.

A special prosecutor has said Carpenter entered Ross' home in Martins Ferry in May and removed items that identified her as the surrogate. He and Police Chief Chad Dojack from nearby Bridgeport are accused of scheming to sell the items.

Steffman said Dojack offered to sell him the surrogate's address and contact information for $1,000. He said he met Carpenter in a post office parking lot, when the chief showed him a cell-phone photo of the cast.

During cross-examination, Steffman said he did not see the items the chief claimed to have.

Carpenter's attorney, Dennis McNamara, has said that the chief entered Ross' house but did not take anything and that he joked with photographers about having access to the home.

Steffman said he never thought Carpenter was joking and that he acted arrogant, aggressive and "like a bully."

Steffman also said he tracked down Ross through her MySpace page and let her know about the conversations he'd had with both chiefs.

Carpenter accessed a law enforcement database from his home to obtain Ross' personal information, including her driver license information, Social Security number, address and driving record, according to testimony from Lisa Sprague of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation.

A sheriff's deputy testified that signs of a break-in at Ross' home included missing personal files, disheveled boxes of photographs, an open bathroom cabinet and the belly cast at the bottom of the stairs instead of where it had been left in a bedroom.

Carpenter faces several felony charges, including burglary, receiving stolen property and theft in office. He could face 21 1/2 years in prison if convicted on all counts.

Dojack faces counts of complicity to burglary and complicity to receiving stolen property. His trial is set for January.

Wicker Man, Equalizer actor Edward Woodward dies

LONDON (Reuters) – British actor Edward Woodward, best known for roles in 1973 cult classic "The Wicker Man" and U.S. television series "The Equalizer," died Monday aged 79.

His agent Janet Glass said the veteran of stage and screen had been ill for several months and passed away in hospital surrounded by members of his family.

"I knew him a very long time and he was a superb human being," Glass told Reuters.

"That integrity shone through in the roles he played. I can't ever remember, in all the productions he undertook, anyone having a bad word to say about him and he never had anything bad to say about anyone else either."

Woodward played police sergeant Neil Howie in occult thriller The Wicker Man, a story of his search for a missing girl on an isolated island.

The movie, famous for its final scene in which Howie is burned alive, also starred Christopher Lee and Britt Ekland.

That part came in the wake of his appearances in the British spy series "Callan," Woodward's big breakthrough into television and movie acting.

In the series, which ran from the late 1960s to the early 1970s, Woodward played a rebellious British secret agent in a role that echoed his most successful U.S. venture, playing Robert McCall in the hit 1980s show The Equalizer.

The show won him a Golden Globe in 1987 for best performance by an actor in a television drama series, although according to the BBC, the actor regretted making The Equalizer because of the toll it took on his health including a major heart attack.

Woodward also earned acclaim for the 1980 Australian film "Breaker Morant," about the murder trial of a lieutenant serving in the Second Boer War.

As well as on-screen success, Woodward was a proven singer and stage actor, and was singled out by Laurence Olivier to appear in the title role of a National Theater production of "Cyrano."

According to Glass, Noel Coward also chose the actor to star in the Broadway show "High Spirits," the musical version of "Blite Spirit," and Woodward recorded 12 solo albums.

The actor's final on-screen appearance was earlier this year in the popular British soap opera "EastEnders."

Woodward is survived by his wife, the English actress Michele Dotrice, and four children -- one by Doltrice and three from a previous marriage.

`Twilight' hunks part of film's heartthrob history

LOS ANGELES – Fifteen-year-old Chloe Bates is in love.

A 10th-grader at an all-girls Catholic school, she lights up when she talks about her handsome 17-year-old honey. Chloe doesn't know too many boys, so she still gets a nervous, buzzy feeling whenever she thinks about HIM. Her friends know all about this guy — he's a regular text and telephone topic between school, homework and dance practice.

Chloe keeps a few pictures of him on her bedroom wall, scattered among snapshots of her and her friends. She also writes about him in her journal. But she can't really get close to him. It's like he doesn't know she exists.

Chloe is in love with Taylor Lautner, one of the hunky stars of the "Twilight" films. And she's not alone.

Girls have been falling in love with movie stars since the dawn of cinema. When teenagers became Tinseltown's prime marketing target, Hollywood delivered handsome heartthrobs any girl could love.

James Dean. Frankie Avalon. David Cassidy. Rick Springfield. Johnny Depp. There are teen icons for every generation. For Chloe and millions of girls around the world, it's Lautner and Robert Pattinson of "New Moon," the latest installment in the "Twilight" series.

These girls aren't just experiencing a movie-star crush, they're participating in a uniquely female rite of passage: The birth of romantic fantasy. And today's technology — online fan forums, Twitter, an endless Web stream of photos and videos — lets them get closer than ever.

Before real boyfriends and first kisses, girls' imaginary relationships with their heartthrobs provide a precursor to adult romance — a love before they know what love might be.

"They're practicing feelings of love and attachment and attraction and romance," says Los Angeles psychologist Wendy Walsh, whose own 11-year-old daughter also loves Lautner. "These are all new feelings, and what a safe way to play them out — in the privacy of their own room with a poster of Taylor Lautner."

The "Twilight" series itself is about first love. "New Moon" centers on Bella Swan, an ordinary teenager in love with the mysterious Edward Cullen (Pattinson), who comes from a family of vampires. Edward is romantic and otherworldly, and though he literally hungers for her, he's gentle and protective. But he leaves and Bella finds comfort with her loyal, longtime friend Jacob Black (Lautner), whom she later discovers belongs to a lineage of werewolves.

"It would be so fun to be Bella," Chloe says wistfully. "I love the idea of having two super-hot mythical creatures fighting over me. I just think that would be incredible."

Chloe hasn't had a real boyfriend yet, but she thinks Lautner would be perfect because he's "that fun, hang out, let's-play-video-games kind of guy that I think would be really fun right now."

Like practically everyone at school, Chloe has read all four novels in the "Twilight" series. She spotted Lautner when she saw the film last year and recognized him from a kids' movie she'd seen a few years earlier.

"Now he's hot," she says. "He's really hot."

Besides his looks, Chloe loves the character he plays: A kid-next-door type who's sweet, funny and just a tad awkward.

"I like him because I can feel like that might actually happen, like this guy could be real," she says.

Pattinson is really hot, too, but Chloe finds his character's infinite devotion to Bella "kind of unrealistic."

Fans of the series fall on two sides: Team Edward and Team Jacob. Chloe aligns firmly with the latter, but "it's pretty much half and half at my school," she says.

Each has his charms. On screen, Pattinson plays a dashing vampire. Off-screen, the British actor is shy and soft-spoken, humbled by all the "Twilight" attention. He's 23, lanky and pale, with thick, tousled hair he constantly runs his fingers through.

Lautner is buff and bronzed, with a gregarious personality, dark eyes and an easy smile. To reprise his character in "New Moon," he packed on more than 20 pounds of chiseled physique.

Pattinson and Lautner may be slightly sexier than teen idols past, but they're cut from the same teen-heartthrob cloth as their predecessors: Smooth-faced stars who seem wholesome — and just a touch away from attainable.

Heidi Hurst, executive editor of teen pinup magazine Tiger Beat, notes that since the magazine was established in 1965, the guys on its pages have been "non-threatening, more on the boyish side of good looks." The November issue features Lautner and Pattinson on the cover.

Most Tiger Beat readers, who range in age from 8 to 16, "still aren't dating boys in real life and this is their first exposure to boys as in `They're cute. I like them,'" Hurst says.

Chloe buys Tiger Beat when it has a good Lautner spread. She'll also Google him from time to time and, until recently, kept a "very hot, shirtless picture" of him as her computer screen-saver. But she's not as obsessive as some of her friends, who check YouTube for him daily and follow various "Twilight" fan sites.

She and a dozen of her friends are planning to make their own Team Jacob T-shirts and see "New Moon" when it opens Friday.

Chloe's mom, Jill Mullikin-Bates, approves of her daughter's love for Lautner, calling the young actor "a wholesome, realistic role model."

"He's the right age and super cute," says the 47-year-old mother of two. "It totally brings me back to when I was that age and having those fantasies."

Mom's teen heartthrob? Leif Garrett, a late-1970s icon adored for his feathered, Farrah Fawcett-style hair.

Fawcett, of course, was the most popular pinup of her day. But the boys who bought her iconic poster related to her in a completely different way than Chloe does, because they typically don't have relationships with their on-screen idols the way girls do. Most guys want to get physical with their love objects, where girls fantasize about their heartthrob becoming their boyfriend.

"Pinups are more explicitly eroticized where a heartthrob ... is about feelings, being able to imagine romance rather than just sex and sexuality," says Karen Tongson, a professor of English and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California.

Former heartthrob Rick Springfield says he never believed his adolescent female followers were attracted to him sexually: "If they were confronted with this older man and they saw all this body hair and whiskers, they'd probably completely gross out."

He theorizes that young, screaming fans are merely responding to fledgling feelings of attraction they can't yet define. "They're just letting out all this new energy that they're discovering," he says.

Chloe says if she ever met Lautner in person, she'd be "freaking out on the inside but trying to act cool on the outside." Sometimes when she's with her friends, "we pretend what we'd say to him if we were more confident."

As if adolescent emotions weren't enough, today's heartthrob crushes are supported by all manner of merchandising and gadgetry.

"It's so much more elaborate than it used to be," says USC cultural historian Leo Braudy. "Every movie comes fit with its posters and its icons and its bobbleheaded dolls."

Where Chloe's mom had to wait for the latest Tiger Beat to get new photos of Leif Garrett, the media empires that create the latest teen idols are ready with an array of products for every Zac Efron around — albums, posters, ring tones, T-shirts, tote bags and more. Then there's the life-sized cardboard cutout of Lautner that Chloe's mom and dad recently bought for her.

One day the doorbell rang at Chloe's San Fernando Valley home and cardboard Lautner was standing there, wearing a T-shirt and jeans and his trademark sweet smile.

He now stands in her bedroom, near the window and the little table where she writes in her journal — her first vision every morning and the last thing she sees each night.

Lauren Bacall, Roger Corman to get early Oscars

LOS ANGELES – The Academy Awards won't be presented until March, but the first Oscar statuettes of the season were being handed out Saturday night at a private, black-tie dinner in Hollywood.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is breaking with tradition and presenting its honorary Oscars away from the televised ceremony. Actress Lauren Bacall, producer-director Roger Corman and cinematographer Gordon Willis were to each receive Oscar statuettes at the inaugural Governors Awards event.

The winner of this year's Irving J. Thalberg Memorial Award, producer John Calley, was to also receive his trophy at the star-studded dinner. Each of the four recipients were chosen by the academy's Board of Governors.

Annette Bening, Tom Hanks, Kirk Douglas, Anjelica Huston and Quentin Tarantino signed on as presenters for the evening, which included 600 invited guests celebrating at the Grand Ballroom above the Kodak Theatre, the same room where the annual post-Academy Awards Governors Ball is held.

Morgan Freeman, Alec Baldwin, Steven Spielberg and other guests were serenaded by a violin quartet before the ceremony began in a room decked out in bronze and silver curtains with a giant Oscar statue at the center.

Bacall made her screen debut with Humphrey Bogart in "To Have and Have Not" in 1944. She went on to star in more than 30 films, including classics such as "The Big Sleep" and "Key Largo."

Corman has directed more than 50 films and produced more than 300 during his five-decade career, including "It Conquered the World" and 1960's "The Little Shop of Horrors."

Willis is a two-time Academy Award nominee for "Zelig" and "The Godfather, Part III."

Calley's producing credits include "Postcards from the Edge," "The Remains of the Day," for which he earned a Best Picture Oscar nomination, "Closer" and "The Da Vinci Code."

Other guests expected Saturday include Jeff Bridges, James Cameron, Dennis Hopper, Ron Howard and Julie Taymor.

The event was being taped but not televised. Excerpts will be shown during the 82nd annual Academy Awards on March 7.

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On the Net:

http://www.oscars.org

Strippers-on-a-truck promotion halted in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS – Live strippers on the back of a truck is too much — even for Sin City.

A Las Vegas strip club has agreed to stop an advertising promotion that involved hauling bikini-clad exotic dancers around in a truck with clear plastic sides.

Larry Beard, marketing director of Deja Vu Showgirls, said Friday that he's taking his lawyer's advice and parking the truck.

"We're going to respect the opinion of the folks that are against it," Beard told The Associated Press. "We're going to be good citizens and take it off the street."

Beard had told the AP earlier this week that he was prepared to fight county leaders and others who thought the moving truck promotion was unseemly or unsafe.

"The girls are wearing more than the girls at the swimming pool wear," Beard said this week. "Even though they're not stripping and taking their clothes off I think people are offended because of the idea that they do."

The truck rolled for 13 nights along the Las Vegas Strip from 10 p.m. until 2 a.m., trying to lure customers to the club. Three sides had windows that weren't tinted, offering views of the strippers dancing around a stripper pole.

The tactic worked, with business booming since the truck started going out, Beard said.

"We even have cars and limos follow us to the club," Beard said this week.

The dancers were allowed to perform in the truck because it was classified as a vehicle for hire, which let the dancers ride in the back without seat belts, Beard said.

Public outrage over the truck grew as pictures and videos of the truck surfaced on the Internet and a county commissioner in Las Vegas vowed to shut it down.

Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak said he got calls from citizens who hated it and others who liked it, but he considered the truck a safety problem.

"It's clearly a distraction," Sisolak told the AP. "Somebody's going to turn their head to look at some girl flipping upside-down and spinning on a pole, and take their eyes off the road and could swerve and pop up the sidewalk and plow into a bunch of tourists that are walking along."

Sisolak said he plans to try to close a loophole in local laws regulating mobile billboards.

Regulations prohibit advertising vehicles that use animation or flashing lights, and Sisolak said he would try to prevent live entertainers from being used, too.

Meanwhile, he's happy the club owners decided to park the truck.

"Could they have won in court? That would have been a long, costly, time-exhaustive battle," Sisolak said. "They clearly got a lot of publicity as it stands, which I'm sure made them happy."

Jackson's "This Is It" passes $200 million worldwide

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Michael Jackson's concert movie "This Is It" has taken more than $200 million at box offices worldwide in the first two weeks of release, the studio behind the movie said on Thursday.

Sony Pictures Entertainment said the movie had grossed $61 million in North America and more than $140 million internationally. Japan ($27.2 million) and the UK ($14.3 million) were particularly strong markets.

The movie is now the 22nd biggest grossing movie worldwide of 2009, according to industry tracker boxofficemojo.com

"This Is It", distributed by Sony Corp-owned Columbia Pictures, was compiled from footage of Jackson rehearsing for a series of planned comeback concerts before his sudden death in June.

Sony paid concert promoters AEG and Jackson's estate about $60 million for the right to make and distribute the movie.

The $200 million plus gross is almost three times more than 2008's "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour" -- a movie some box office watchers had used as a benchmark for "This Is It."

The Jackson film opened on October 28 for a planned two week run but has since been extended until early December.