Darkness Falls Across The Land: ‘Thriller’ To Become Feature Film

  • Share
  • Read Later
Michael Jackson in 'Thriller'

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Is it bad was that our first thought was “But they’d have to dig up Vincent Price!” We’re sorry, MJ.

Due to NewsFeed’s strong personal convictions, we wish to stress that this post in no way endorses a belief in the occult.

As we reported this morning, death continues to be a lucrative experience for Michael Jackson. And now it looks like his coffin-coffers will be swelling even further: Deadline is reporting that a company called GK films has been working to acquire the rights to make a feature film version of Jackson’s seminal “Thriller” video.

This is generally the point where NewsFeed goes into a boilerplate rant about how sad it is that Hollywood is so afraid of releasing films based on original ideas that they would much rather run to the shelter of any existing properties that have not yet been stepped up, no matter how ludicrous. But people, we think, are sick of that! So instead, we will note that the people who made the biggest contributions to “Thriller,” Michael Jackson and Vincent Price, are both dead and probably have very little interest in making cameo appearances as zombies in the new version.

More on TIME.com: See pictures of artifacts from Michael Jackson’s estate

We will also note that Jackson’s This Is It director Kenny Ortega is attached to direct, with Jeremy Garelick of The Hangover handling the screenplay. As Deadline notes in the worst sentence ever: “Plot is being kept under wraps but I understand it has to do with the song’s folklore, involving Vincent Price and the town he grew up in.” Price was born in St. Louis and attended the St. Louis Country Day School. Spooky!

NewsFeed is nothing if not eternal optimists, though, so we’ll look on the bright side. Could this mean that a three-hour adaptation of Bollywood Thriller is next? If that happens, this is what our faces will look like. (via The A.V. Club)