Oct. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Michael Jackson’s movie and CD may generate as much as $400 million in sales worldwide as fans turn out to see and hear the last live performances of the late King of Pop.

“Michael Jackson’s This Is It” album, featuring one new song, goes on sale starting today. The movie with the same title opens Oct. 28 in more than 90 countries, including 3,400 theaters in the U.S., according to Hollywood.com Box-Office.

More than 1,000 U.S. shows were sold out as of Oct. 22, according to the online ticket vendor Fandango.com. Cinemas in London, Sydney, Bangkok and Tokyo also reported sellouts, according to Sony Corp., which is releasing the film and the album. In the U.K., sales topped those of “Harry Potter” and “The Lord of the Rings” at the Vue Entertainment Ltd. chain.

“It’s a true phenomenon,” said Tim Richards, chief executive officer of London-based Vue, whose cinema near the O2 Arena, where Jackson was scheduled to perform a series of comeback concerts, is among those that sold out.

Jackson’s work may be prized more after his death than it was in life, said Robert Sillerman, CEO of CKX Inc., the New York-based operator of Graceland, Elvis Presley’s Tennessee home, and co-producer of “American Idol.”

“In death, people remember the best of somebody,” Sillerman said. “Certainly that is turning out to be the case in Elvis and the Beatles. I think it will turn out to be the case in Michael’s situation.”

Ticket Sales

Jackson died at age 50 on June 25 in Los Angeles of a drug overdose, three weeks before the concerts were set to begin. Sony, the singer’s music label, won a bidding war for a documentary film built around footage compiled during rehearsals, agreeing to pay $60 million, according to court documents.

The film may generate $300 million to $400 million in global ticket sales, said Jeff Bock, a box-office analyst for Los Angeles-based researcher Exhibitor Relations Co. U.S. sales in the first five days may be $55 million to $60 million, said Jeffrey Hartke, an analyst with Los Angeles-based Hollywood Stock Exchange, which forecasts film performance.

The two-disc album, with the new track “This is It,” as well as “Billie Jean,” “Smooth Criminal” and “Thriller,” may sell 200,000 to 500,000 copies in the U.S., according to Silvio Pietroluongo, director of sales charts at Billboard magazine. The suggested retail price of $17.98 has been marked down to $9.99 at Amazon.com Inc.

The releases may help dent the hundreds of millions of dollars in debt the entertainer ran up during his lifetime.

Paying Off Debt

Jackson’s estate gets 90 percent of profit from the movie after Sony is paid for its role, including marketing and distribution fees, according to two people with knowledge of the arrangement. Concert promoter AEG Live, owned by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz, gets the remaining 10 percent.

The promoter recouped about $36 million it invested in Jackson’s canceled tour from the $60 million Sony paid for rehearsal footage, according to one of the people.

The estate will use proceeds from the movie and the album to reduce Jackson’s debt, said another person, who declined to be identified because the matters are private.

A spokesman for Los Angeles-based AEG confirmed the profit split between the estate and the promoter. Lois Najarian, a spokeswoman for Sony Music, declined to comment.

A spokesman for Jackson’s estate declined to comment. The singer died owing about $400 million, the Associated Press has estimated.

Quarterly Lift

Tokyo-based Sony will likely see little profit from the film until it is released on DVD, said Daniel Ernst, an analyst with Hudson Square Research in New York who recommends the shares and doesn’t own them.

“Its hard to imagine that it has much if any measurable impact on Sony,” Ernst said. “Should the DVD perform well, we could see it giving Sony Pictures a bit of a lift in the quarter it comes out.”

U.S. traded Sony shares fell 35 cents to $28.91 on Oct. 23 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has gained 32 percent this year.

The movie follows Jackson from his initial work on the London concert series to the final dress rehearsal. It includes interviews with friends and collaborators.

Director Kenny Ortega declined to forecast sales, saying he didn’t know whether the film would attract more than loyal fans.

“I hope the word gets out,” Ortega said in an interview. “I hope there will be some curiosity and interest.”

Concert Films

Concert films typically aren’t big hits, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office at Los Angeles-based Hollywood.com, which tracks receipts.

The record belongs to Walt Disney Co.’s “Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: The Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour.”

Released last year, the film generated $70.6 million worldwide, according to Sherman Oaks, California-based Box Office Mojo, which also tracks sales. “Madonna: Truth or Dare” took in $29 million worldwide in 1991. “U2 3D” did $16.6 million in 2008, according to Box Office Mojo.

In Brazil, exhibitor Cinemas Severiano Ribeiro, with 211 theaters, sold 25,000 tickets to “This Is It” through Oct. 23. That compares with 32,000 for “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” which opens on Nov. 20. Sales for both movies started Sept. 25.

Consumers have purchased 5.6 million copies of previously released Jackson albums since his death, according to Nielsen SoundScan. For the year to date, his sales total 5.9 million. The next closest is country singer Taylor Swift, who has sold 2.3 million albums this year, according to SoundScan.

Best Seller

Jackson’s estate and his record company were sorting through ownership of about 100 unreleased Jackson tracks, Sony’s U.S. finance chief, Rob Wiesenthal, said in July. Most are owned by the estate or by Sony, he said then.

Jackson, who won 13 Grammy Awards and sold more than 750 million records, rose to stardom with his brothers in the Jackson 5, then moved to a solo career that peaked with the 1982 release of “Thriller,” the top-selling album of all time worldwide, according to Sony.

In later years, he became tabloid fodder as he altered his appearance through plastic surgery, faced allegations of child sexual abuse and refinanced debt to stave off bankruptcy.

Los Angeles Police Department detectives are investigating the singer’s death from an overdose of propofol, a drug used to anesthetize patients in hospitals and clinics, and the role played by the entertainer’s physician, Conrad Murray.

The 02 concerts were the beginning of a comeback, “This Is It” director Ortega said. The singer was considering additional shows outside the U.K., he said.

Jackson and Ortega also discussed working together to develop feature films, including one based on gangster Legs Diamond and another derived from Jackson’s “Thriller” video.

“He was far from retiring,” Ortega said. “There was lots of living left to do.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Michael White in Los Angeles at mwhite8@bloomberg.net; Adam Satariano in San Francisco at asatariano1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 26, 2009 04:19 EDT