This means that as the film's release date (Oct. 30th) approaches, we'll all be treated to more interviews with Jackson family members as well every bizarre Michael Jackson hanger-on under the sun, just like we have every day for the last few weeks! Goodness gracious Mable.

Reports the LA Times:

Although several studios expressed interest, Sony emerged the winner by agreeing to pay Jackson's estate and AEG Live at least $60 million for the film rights.

As part of the deal, Sony will deduct the cost of making the movie from the $60-million minimum. After covering its costs for distribution and marketing, it then will split the rest of the film's revenue with the Jackson Estate and AEG via a complex formula that was redacted from a copy of the agreement filed in court.

The film, to be directed by High School Musical director Kenny Ortega, is titled This Is It and will be released worldwide. It'll include some 3-D scenes, which means I'll definitely be seeing it, as will all of you, because who can possibly resist seeing MJ moonwalk in 3-D? Um, nobody!

According to our tipster, who works for one of Sony's Internet service providers, MySpace's security team inadvertently banned Sony employees from accessing its site in the course of going after a spammer:

I just talked to MySpace's head of security and they are lifting the block.

Here's why Sony was blocked. They get their Internet through us. MySpace went after one of our customers for MySpace spamming. We terminated that customer because I hate spammers with a vengence, but then MySpace banned our whole [system]. In essence, MySpace believed we were just a hosting provider and not the actual Internet — i.e. providing transit connectivity where companies go through us to reach other companies.

Oh and it wasn't just Sony... Los Angeles County government along with Orange County government offices use us for transit. So they were also blocked.

We were emailing MySpace for a few days, but they didn't believe we provided anything more than dedicated servers. We believe the only reason MySpace finally unblocked our network was because we sent them a link to your story.

We were scratching our heads as to why MySpace blocked Sony when Sony spends so much money advertising movies and music.

Our tipster speculates: "Revenge for all the crap services that MySpace provided to Sony as a studio? Maybe." There'd be a ha-ha joke about how not being able to log onto MySpace's unusable site is a kindness, except that Hollywood studios, which set up pages for their movies to promote them, actually need to access the site. Here's the memo about the outage:

From: Brian Franke
Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2009 1:32 PM
To: Interactive
Subject: MySpace.com Update

Folks,

Just wanted to let you know that we are looking into the MySpace.com redirect to Google.com issue.

It appears to be on the MySpace end (unexpectedly), and has been escalated to their network team.

No ETA yet on a resolution.

Please contact me if you have time-sensitive MySpace deliverables, and we can discuss options.

Regards,

Brian

—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-

Brian Franke

Executive Director of Technology

Sony Pictures Imageworks Interactive

Update: Brian Franke's colleague Nancy Kim, director of digital communications strategy at Sony Pictures Entertainment, sent us this email:

Hi Owen,

Can you please remove this article?

Not sure where you received that information? As Sony is certainly not "banned".

Please feel free to call me if needed.

Thanks!

Nancy

So now Sony has two problems: A ban by MySpace, and a digital communications strategy which seems to involve denying reality.

(Photo by xurble)

John Cusack is in negotiations to star in director Roland Emmerich's (10,000 B.C., The Day After Tomorrow) new disaster movie 2012 for Sony Pictures. The title refers to the year the world is supposed to end after a global cataclysm. Cusack is negotiating to play Jackson Curtis, a divorced dad who alternates between writing and driving a limo. ...

Sony acquired the project in a high-stakes bidding war and is aiming for a summer 2009 release. The price tag for the special-effects laden movie could reach $200 million.

The Hollywood Reporter has stepped in over the last hour to specify a July 10, 2009, release date and to talk down the budget below $200 million — a staggering number under any circumstances, but most certainly for a film featuring John Cusack as a divorced limo driver. By the director of 10,000 BC. Alas, we'll miss this one anyway because this is the part of the post where we shoot ourselves.

[Photo Credit: Wireimage]

• John Cusack in talks for Roland Emmerich's '2012' [EW]

• John Cusack ponders disaster flick [THR]