‘This is It’ director Kenny Ortega spoke to the audience at an Entertainment Weekly event in Los Angeles Monday night and said that he is

“happy for Michael”

that the  film, which opened to $101 million worldwide last weekend, is now the highest grossing concert film in history. The EW event was a tribute to the legendary director and choreographer.

“Michael had filmmaking in his future,”

Ortega said.

“So I’m just glad that this film—even though he didn’t get to have that experience—has in fact made him a movie star.”

Speaking to a crowd of approximately 200 in the EW lounge — part of this week’s American Film Institute Festival in Hollywood — Ortega gave Jackson credit for helping to resurrect the movie musical through his short-film style of music videos for songs such as Thriller and Smooth Criminal.

“We wouldn’t have movie musicals this day if it wasn’t for Michael Jackson,”

Ortega said.

Ortega also recalled personal memories of Jackson, including that MJ had two or three personal colognes that he frequently used, and that during rehearsals for ‘This is It,’ the dancers would line up to get hugs from him just because of how good he smelled. One afternoon, when Ortega had been working hard all morning, and was covered in sweat, he went to Jackson’s trailer to talk to him. When Jackson approached Ortega to hug him, Ortega said,

“You don’t want to hug me. I’m sweaty. I stink.”

Jackson replied,

“That’s ok,”

whipped out a bottle of his cologne, and spritzed Ortega with it. Ortega smiled at the memory.

“That whole rest of the day, everybody just was hugging me and saying ‘You smell like Michael!’”

he said.

Source: mjfanclub.net

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