LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Advance sales for “This Is It” look set to make the concert movie starring the late Michael Jackson into one of the hottest tickets of the year.

Two weeks ahead of its opening, the singer’s concert movie “This Is It” has generated more than 1,600 sold out U.S. show times and is the top seller this week at two major online ticket outlets.

That puts “This Is It” in the same territory as next month’s highly anticipated “Twilight” sequel “New Moon” and other films that have generated high pre-release sales.

“The pre-sales activity all over the world has been nothing short of extraordinary,” Steve Elzer, a spokesman for Sony Corp-owned Columbia Pictures, the studio behind the film, told Reuters.

“But exhibitors have really met the demand by adding screens, and tickets are available for anyone who would want to see it, anytime,” Elzer said.

“This Is It” is composed of footage of the “Thriller” singer rehearsing for a series of London comeback concerts just before his unexpected June 25 death, at age 50, from an overdose of powerful medication.

The studio has said the 112-minute movie will have a limited two-week engagement around the world, starting October 28. Read on…

“Michael told me often he felt like he grew up as an orphan, like a foster kid, because he never was in one home,” [Bryan] Stoller said. “To him every hotel was like a different foster home. He said he used to sit in the window and see kids playing outside and cry because he couldn’t be part of that.” (source)

Jackson and Stoller had plans to discuss the film’s details and perhaps start working on it (with Jackson directing) after Michael’s London tour was complete. Will Stoller still produce the movie now that Jackson is gone?