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About this themepark MJ was gonna build.

Michael made a lot of bad investments in the late 1990's that is one of the reasons why he has such a large debt, the park never materialized because of a license that was denied

http://casinodetroit.net/casjun00.html

What Happened to Majestic Kingdom?

by Howard Berenbon
Don Barden, the controversial Detroit millionaire and applicant for a casino license (once owner of Barden Cablevision in Detroit), had a good idea. As a part of his casino license proposal in July 1998, he included an amusement park, with the help of the entertainer, Michael Jackson, called Majestic Kingdom. The plan included a hotel and casino, with restaurants, nightclubs and also a Michael Jackson Thriller Theme Park. What a great idea! Our own little Disneyland in Detroit. And the river front would be a great place for a theme park for kids and adults.
Unfortunately, Barden and Jackson were denied a casino license by Detroit City Council. Barden then organized a referendum drive to overturn the council's decision, but that failed. On August 4, 1998, Detroiters voted down the proposal.
Don Barden and Michael Jackson did have a good idea in their casino proposal. Detroit needs a theme park. The only park close by, but closed a few years ago, was Boblo Island, with a fun boat ride on the Detroit River to the Canadian isle. Now, the nearest park to Detroit is Cedar Point, in Sandusky Ohio, which is a 2 hour, 112 mile drive. We need a theme park in Detroit for the kids, and for adults who act like kids (I admit to that, at times). For now, nothing is being planned.
Currently, two temporary casinos have opened here in Detroit: The MotorCity Casino and MGM Grand Detroit The third temporary casino, the Greektown Casino, is built, ready to go, and awaiting approval, but stalled due to a problem with the shareholders, Gatzaros and Papas. They're now in the process of selling their shares. And not too far in the near future, the Greektown Casino will open its doors.
 
Michael made a lot of bad investments in the late 1990's that is one of the reasons why he has such a large debt,
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. u have no idea how much money mj invested in ventures and considering they never got off the ground i doubt much was put into them as other than paper work etc, no money was ever spent on actually building anything. u talk as if tens of millions were spent on building things that then shut down.
 
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Detroit sure could have used that. Council really did the city a disservice by turning it down.
 
Siyahamba said:
Detroit sure could have used that. Council really did the city a disservice by turning it down.
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Think about it though - who is going to Detroit? Maybe 3 months out of the year, eh, ok. But the rest of the year it'd be empty.
 
elusive moonwalker said:
. u have no idea how much money mj invested in ventures and considering they never got off the ground i doubt much was put into them as other than paper work etc, no money was ever spent on actually building anything. u talk as if tens of millions were spent on building things that then shut down.
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I detect a little hostility, but you also do not know if the tens of millions were lost or not, there is a reason why he was in debt. It was not only because he liked to buy expensive art.
 
iamthriller82 said:
I detect a little hostility, but you also do not know if the tens of millions were lost or not, there is a reason why he was in debt. It was not only because he liked to buy expensive art.
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Thats quite ridiculous´to think that Michaels debts were caused of buying expensive art.

There are so many other stars and celebs who spend millions for chackies and stupid things as well as huge villas or palaces and they dont have debts (just watch MTVs Cribs, most of the star are living in more luxury houses than Michael at Neverland, in fact Neverland has never been about the merry-go-rounds, it was just a small part of the property)

One of the investments was Sony/ATV, since 2000 Sony/ATV has paid more than 700 mill. dollars for buying music catalogs, and Michael has 50% share, its quite common to borrow money - as a relevant investor, and Sony/ATV (Michael was) is the investor, so they bought the catalogs..., see the point? (you can see it now with the financial crisis....)

Even Elton John is much more eccentric in buying stuff than Michael ever was.

The themeparks like in Poland, Detroit, there was a rumour that MJ wanted to buy Tivoli park, some projects in Japan... are about the investments...

See this:
[YOUTUBE]VW7_9Y13Xls[/YOUTUBE]
 
Sirena said:
Think about it though - who is going to Detroit? Maybe 3 months out of the year, eh, ok. But the rest of the year it'd be empty.
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I think the main target audience was the five million or so people already living in metro Detroit--there aren't any amusement parks in the area at the moment, nor were there any when this one was planned. It was an untapped customer base. Plus there are millions more people who are within a day's drive, not to mention Michael's fans who would have come from all over to visit an amusement park he had a hand in designing.
 
has it even been confirmed that MJ was in debt?

BTW I hate how they interpreted his investments as a result of their implied "low sales".
 
detect a little hostility, but you also do not know if the tens of millions were lost or not, there is a reason why he was in debt. It was not only because he liked to buy expensive art.
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im not the one making claims. no one knows why the loans came about and how and what they were spent on. im not the one making assertions as if they are facts. when considering these theme parks etc never even came about
 
has it even been confirmed that MJ was in debt?
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yes. he had debts.u can read up on the trusts he forned to pay it off from court docs that were released to the public everyone has debts. got a morgarge or a credit card then u are in debt. u dont create billion $ empires withouts getting in debt its how u make money, sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt hence the likes of trump filing for bankrupty numerous times
 
Thats quite ridiculous´to think that Michaels debts were caused of buying expensive art.

There are so many other stars and celebs who spend millions for chackies and stupid things as well as huge villas or palaces and they dont have debts (just watch MTVs Cribs, most of the star are living in more luxury houses than Michael at Neverland, in fact Neverland has never been about the merry-go-rounds, it was just a small part of the property)

One of the investments was Sony/ATV, since 2000 Sony/ATV has paid more than 700 mill. dollars for buying music catalogs, and Michael has 50% share, its quite common to borrow money - as a relevant investor, and Sony/ATV (Michael was) is the investor, so they bought the catalogs..., see the point? (you can see it now with the financial crisis....)

Even Elton John is much more eccentric in buying stuff than Michael ever was.

The themeparks like in Poland, Detroit, there was a rumour that MJ wanted to buy Tivoli park, some projects in Japan... are about the investments...
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exactly
 
elusive moonwalker said:
yes. he had debts.u can read up on the trusts he forned to pay it off from court docs that were released to the public everyone has debts. got a morgarge or a credit card then u are in debt. u dont create billion $ empires withouts getting in debt its how u make money, sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt hence the likes of trump filing for bankrupty numerous times
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I meant was he in financial trouble? you know like what the media says? That he had a 400 million debt which he had no way of paying off other than the concerts?
 
I meant was he in financial trouble? you know like what the media says? That he had a 400 million debt which he had no way of paying off other than the concerts?
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no. the concerts had nothing to do with him paying the debt off. in or around 2007 he set up trusts that were created to pay off his debt.all the money he made off sony/atv was put into these trust funds and went directly to paying off the loans. mj couldnt touch this money. if the agreement stays as it is the debt would have been paid off by 2011.so doing the concerts had nothing to do with paying the debt in the sense that there was already a deal in place that was paying them off and had been paying them off for the last couple off years. the debt figure kept raising par the press B.S it doubled from 200-400mil within days of the 25th.
 
elusive moonwalker said:
no. the concerts had nothing to do with him paying the debt off. in or around 2007 he set up trusts that were created to pay off his debt.all the money he made off sony/atv was put into these trust funds and went directly to paying off the loans. mj couldnt touch this money. if the agreement stays as it is the debt would have been paid off by 2011.so doing the concerts had nothing to do with paying the debt in the sense that there was already a deal in place that was paying them off and had been paying them off for the last couple off years. the debt figure kept raising par the press B.S it doubled from 200-400mil within days of the 25th.
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THANK YOU I knew this was all BS. So basically MJ was... well maybe not in the best financial condition but he wasn't "in trouble" either. Thanks that's all I needed to know.

That said, I think these theme park investments, along with the kingdom entertainment made a lot of problems for him. Its a shame really.
 
elusive moonwalker said:
im not the one making claims. no one knows why the loans came about and how and what they were spent on. im not the one making assertions as if they are facts. when considering these theme parks etc never even came about
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I just merely stated that was ONE of the reasons why MJ had debt. When building a project or business, a lot of money is spent on R&D, permits, designs, I was under the impression that these were being done because of the press conference in regards to it and in no way wanted to create facts
 
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ASIS said:
THANK YOU I knew this was all BS. So basically MJ was... well maybe not in the best financial condition but he wasn't "in trouble" either. Thanks that's all I needed to know.

That said, I think these theme park investments, along with the kingdom entertainment made a lot of problems for him. Its a shame really.
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welcome. yes he prob wasnt in the best shape cause a huge chunk of his income was going straight into the trusts. so he may have been cash poor but no he was never in trouble because mj had huge assets that if he were that desperate hecould have sold some, but mj knew that would be bad in the long run so he created the trusts to make sure everything was paid off in a certain time frame. of coursethe money from the concerts would help. but its not like he had to do them. AEG had been pushing him for a couple of years with offers, if he were desperate he could have done a few tv interviews and made upto/over 20 mill from them easily

That said, I think these theme park investments, along with the kingdom entertainment made a lot of problems for him. Its a shame really
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considering there was very little cash outlay as the parks etc never happened i very much doubt these were the reasons.letters of intent that were done in poland dont cost millions of $ even if u are mj. there were reports of mj putting money into ventures/companys b4 the markets crashed after 9/11 id be more inclined to believe things like that
 
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elusive moonwalker said:
no. the concerts had nothing to do with him paying the debt off. in or around 2007 he set up trusts that were created to pay off his debt.a
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They did have something to do with it as the concerts (as well as any album release or anything else Michael would have released) were going to generate a LOT of income.

I realize money would be coming in anyway, because of royalties and the beatles catalogue and what not...but any project for that matter would generate a lot of extra money for the trust resulting in the debts being paid off faster.

As far as Michael being in debt........I doubt it's from bad investments only. He had some shady people around him who no doubt had something to do with it all....
 
Dutchie said:
They did have something to do with it as the concerts (as well as any album release or anything else Michael would have released) were going to generate a LOT of income.

I realize money would be coming in anyway, because of royalties and the beatles catalogue and what not...but any project for that matter would generate a lot of extra money for the trust resulting in the debts being paid off faster.

As far as Michael being in debt........I doubt it's from bad investments only. He had some shady people around him who no doubt had something to do with it all....
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The concerts were not going to his debt, however. The debt was going to be taking care of in a couple of years, so there was really no need for him to pay it off faster. He was doing the concerts for his own reasons. Reasons which he stated in TII as well to his friends and family.

Debt is generated in many ways. People who do alot of investments do not have alot of cash at hand. The people you see on cribs or VH1's fab life has alot of cash on them, but little actually invested. Their income comes solely from them working or royalties, which is why these people are usually not super rich.

I am sure shady people did not help, but that come with the territory when you make crap load of money.
 
They did have something to do with it as the concerts (as well as any album release or anything else Michael would have released) were going to generate a LOT of income.
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yeah i know what u mean but my answer was really more to do with the question from the poster about mj having to do the concerts in order to pay off the debt or he would have gone bankrupt. because of the trusts that were set up the debts were already been paid off but yeah of course geting a few 100 mill from the concerts would have led mj to pay off the debt earlier if he had wanted to use the money for that.but then again sometimes u have early payment charges so it might not have been in his best intrest to pay it off quicker. but of course a few 100 mill certainly isnt something u would turn down

He had some shady people around him who no doubt had something to do with it all....
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very true
 
Ramona122003 said:
The concerts were not going to his debt, however. The debt was going to be taking care of in a couple of years, so there was really no need for him to pay it off faster. He was doing the concerts for his own reasons. Reasons which he stated in TII as well to his friends and family.

Debt is generated in many ways. People who do alot of investments do not have alot of cash at hand. The people you see on cribs or VH1's fab life has alot of cash on them, but little actually invested. Their income comes solely from them working or royalties, which is why these people are usually not super rich.

I am sure shady people did not help, but that come with the territory when you make crap load of money.
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Ah, I get what you mean. I didn't know the debt was going to be paid off within such a short amount of time, so yeah maybe the money Michael would have made from T.I.I. would have gone straight into his pocket.
 
Regarding the Peter Pan's Neverland theme park project and Kingdom Entertainment, I read an article which said the park wasn't built because Michael and Prince Al-Waleed ended their association. Does anybody know why?

The article suggested that this and the cost of this concept meant the end for the theme park. :scratch: Was this concept tied into Kingdom Ent. in some way? Because I think Mike could have found another partner to make this work. He always had people wanting to work with him.
 
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