Unseen Jackson film valued at $6-8 million goes unsold

Reuters

Singer Michael Jackson performs "Dangerous" during a taping of "American Bandstand's 50th...A Celebration" in Pasadena, California, April 20, 2002. REUTERS/Jim Ruymen

Previously unseen footage of Michael Jackson's 1993 "Dangerous" tour, which had been expected to fetch 4-5 million pounds ($6.2-7.8 million) failed to sell at auction in Britain on Saturday. "At this stage it has not sold," said a spokesman for The Fame Bureau auctioneers, who specialize in pop memorabilia. "We are still talking to people, but online it did not sell." He said he was confident a buyer would be found, although "nothing is a certainty." The auction house said it had been forced to remove a brief clip of the video from its website before the online auction after Jackson's record label made a "copyright claim."

The fact that a successful buyer may not be able to use the film for commercial purposes may have dampened demand given the hefty asking price, but the spokesman played down the copyright dispute. "I don't think that was a problem at all," he said, adding that any serious potential buyer would be fully aware of the issue. Nearly two hours long, the footage was shot by Jackson's own production crew and meant to be an intimate portrait of Jackson on tour.

But the singer was unhappy with the quality and gave the only copy to his driver, who was now trying to sell the footage, the auction house said. It was made during Jackson's "Dangerous" tour in 1993 at a stop in Argentina. A DVD of the "Dangerous" concert tour, filmed in Bucharest, was released in 2005 and is still available on Amazon.com and other retailers for about $12. Items related to Jackson have skyrocketed in value since his death in 2009. The red and black leather jacket he wore for his 1983 "Thriller" video sold for $1.8 million in Los Angeles in June.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White)