Underdog Stories / General
How Much Did Michael Jackson's Thriller Video Cost?
How did Michael Jackson pay for the Thriller music video? CBS balked at the cost, so a making-of film helped turn a huge production bill into a TV deal.
By Brett Hanson · Underdog Podcasts · October 30, 2026
Michael Jackson wanted to turn into a monster. John Landis could do that for him, but the director had a bigger idea: make Thriller into a short horror film. The bill was going to be enormous for a music video, and Jackson’s record company saw little reason to pay it.
How did Michael Jackson pay for the Thriller music video? He offered to cover it himself. Then his team filmed a making-of documentary and sold TV rights to that film alongside the finished short. Those deals supplied much of the money. The answer is less tidy than “Jackson paid for everything,” which is how the story often travels.
On Circle the Block, Cunda puts the cost at $500,000 to $900,000. Rello Desaya has a simpler objection to the company’s refusal: “It’s fucking Michael Jackson.” Fair enough. Yet by late 1983, the album was already a hit. That was precisely why CBS Records thought another costly video made little business sense.
How much did Michael Jackson's Thriller music video cost?
About $500,000 to make, by Landis’s later account. A larger figure, roughly $900,000, comes from an early budget estimate reported by Vanity Fair. Both numbers have a basis. They should not be treated as the same final bill.
Half a million dollars. In an interview preserved by the Library of Congress, Landis said the film cost that much, while typical rock videos of the period cost $35,000 to $50,000. Even Jackson’s Beat It, which Landis called extravagant at about $150,000, was far cheaper.
The proposed Thriller film needed more. Landis wanted to shoot on film and tell a story before the song took over. Rick Baker would create the monster makeup; Michael Peters and Jackson would work on the dance. Ola Ray would play Jackson’s date. It took a crew and rehearsals to get those zombies moving together.
Cunda gives the $500,000-to-$900,000 range in the episode, saying the higher sum includes extra materials. The reporting available now points to a firmer distinction: $900,000 was an estimate made before production, while Landis later recalled a cost of $500,000. There is no good reason to pretend those accounts match down to the last dollar.
Why wouldn't CBS pay for the Thriller video?
The Thriller album came out in November 1982. By the time Jackson and Landis planned the film in 1983, Billie Jean and Beat It had videos, and the record was selling at a pace most labels could only dream about. CBS Records president Walter Yetnikoff did not see why the company should spend another half-million dollars to promote it.
Landis recalled Yetnikoff rejecting the proposal bluntly. Vanity Fair reported that CBS eventually agreed to put in $100,000, though it would not take on the whole budget. That detail matters: “CBS refused to fund it” captures the initial answer, but misses its reported later contribution.
The label had also refused to pay for Beat It, according to Vanity Fair. Jackson covered that video’s reported $150,000 cost himself. A company faced with another, far bigger request could see the risk, even if its decision now looks painfully short-sighted.
Rello spots a use CBS seems to have missed. On Circle the Block, he points out that a horror film could return each Halloween. Cunda says the company “wasn’t thinking past their shoes.” They are judging it with decades of replays behind them, of course. Still, Rello had wanted to see the dance as a child and had been too scared to watch. An ordinary ad rarely leaves that problem for a viewer.
How did Michael Jackson pay for the Thriller music video?
Jackson said he would pay, according to Landis. His offer kept the project alive. The way the team raised the money involved another film: a documentary showing how they made the first one.
George Folsey Jr., Landis’s producer, and John Branca, Jackson’s lawyer, helped put together a plan: pair a roughly 45-minute making-of documentary with the roughly 14-minute Thriller short and sell the hour of programming to cable TV. That was the point. The footage being shot behind the scenes had a job beyond preserving memories.
Vanity Fair reported that MTV paid $250,000 and Showtime paid $300,000 for the package. It said Jackson covered some costs up front and would be paid back. Add CBS’s reported $100,000 contribution, and those figures show how the team could meet a bill near Landis’s recalled $500,000 cost.
The accounts differ on one payment. In his later Library of Congress interview, Landis remembered Showtime paying $250,000, matching MTV’s $250,000. A Washington Post report from December 1983 gave Showtime’s reported payment as $300,000 and said MTV would not disclose its own fee. The exact split is uncertain; the cable-rights plan is well supported.
The phrase “out of his own pocket” describes Jackson’s willingness to take the risk and advance money. It does not mean he alone bore the final cost. Selling access to the making-of film changed who paid the bill.
Why did Michael Jackson make the Thriller music video?
“I wanted to watch the dance choreography, but I was too scared to watch it.”
Jackson had seen Landis’s An American Werewolf in London and liked Baker’s transformation effects. Landis said Jackson called because he wanted to become a monster on screen. It is an unusually modest starting request for a film that would end up with a street full of dancing dead.
Landis proposed a short with a plot. Jackson and Ray begin as a couple in a horror story; a change of scene makes them a couple leaving a movie theater. Then the threat follows them onto the street. Each time the audience settles on what is real, the film shifts again.
That structure gave Jackson room to act, dance and vanish under makeup. It also let the song arrive as part of a story rather than play straight through. Landis described wanting a theatrical short that could run before a feature. The Library of Congress records a limited Los Angeles theater release in November 1983, before the film reached MTV on December 2.
Cunda calls it a “14-minute musical horror film.” Rello remembers wanting to learn the moves and fearing the zombies at the same time. He singles out Vincent Price’s voice, which could scare him even when he avoided the screen. The song had already put the voice in his head. The film supplied something for it to haunt.
Where did Michael Jackson film the Thriller music video?
Jackson and the crew shot across Los Angeles in October 1983. The theater scenes used the Palace Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. The zombie dance took place on East Union Pacific Avenue in Boyle Heights, near South Calzona Street.
The final house exterior was at 1345 Carroll Avenue in Angelino Heights. Los Angeles Magazine identifies Griffith Park as the setting for the opening monster-movie scene, and reports that the cemetery and haunted-house interiors were made on a Hollywood soundstage. Not a real cemetery.
These places help explain the film’s scale. Jackson and Ray leave a recognizable theater, then the street fills with dancers in Baker’s makeup. Deborah Nadoolman Landis put Jackson in the red jacket that keeps him easy to spot against the night setting. Landis later singled out her choice as part of the film’s look.
Some searches ask where Jackson “recorded” the Thriller music video. That can blur the song and the film. The music belongs to the 1982 album; the Los Angeles locations are where the 1983 short was shot. The dance street is a real road, even if the crowd on it is best left to the screen.
How much money did the Thriller music video make?
There is no single reliable figure for the film’s profit. The reported MTV and Showtime payments were rights deals used to finance production. They were not a public accounting of every later dollar the film earned or of Jackson’s personal return.
The making-of program found another buyer. Vestron sold it on home video for $29.95, a price aimed at people who wanted to own a tape rather than rent one. The documentary gave them the short film and a look at the work behind it. That sale was separate from the early cable deals.
The album provides clearer evidence of a surge, though its sales cannot all be credited to one video. The Washington Post reported in December 1983 that an additional 650,000 copies sold during the week after the MTV premiere, citing Jackson’s publicist. The record had already produced major hits and sold millions before the film aired.
On the show, Cunda bristles at the thought of CBS benefiting from a project it had been reluctant to back. He has a point. The video brought fresh attention to a record the company was still selling. Just how much of any later album purchase was caused by Thriller alone is a question no receipt can settle.
Why does the Thriller music video remain culturally significant?
The film gave viewers a sequence they could recognize in pieces: a red jacket, a line of zombies, a turn toward the camera. Those details worked long after the first broadcast. Rello says he still remembers the final flash of Jackson’s eyes; Cunda remembers hearing Price’s voice in a dark house and reconsidering a trip downstairs for snacks.
Its reach went beyond a seasonal scare. The Library of Congress added Michael Jackson’s Thriller to the National Film Registry in 2009. Its catalog credits Landis and Jackson as writers, Peters and Jackson as choreographers, and Baker for the special makeup effects. That is a film crew’s worth of work on what CBS had been asked to buy as another video.
Rello points to later artists borrowing its clothes and scenes. He also remembers Jackson’s later long-form videos. Thriller did not invent the idea that a song could tell a story on screen; Billie Jean and Beat It had already done that for Jackson. It showed how far he could take the idea when he got the time to finish the story.
The money problem helped make that possible. Without an hour to sell, the team might have had a much harder time paying for fourteen minutes. Somewhere in those extra forty-five minutes, Baker can be seen working on the monster Jackson had asked to become.
The full episode of Circle The Block is on Underdog Podcasts, with the rest of the network's shows.
People also ask
Did Michael Jackson pay for Thriller himself?+
Jackson offered to pay and covered some costs up front, according to accounts from people involved. His team then sold TV rights to a making-of documentary packaged with the short film. Those deals helped pay for production. CBS Records also reportedly contributed $100,000, so Jackson did not bear the entire final bill alone.
Was the Thriller music video $500,000 or $900,000?+
John Landis later said the film cost about $500,000 to make. *Vanity Fair* reported that Landis and producer George Folsey Jr. had first estimated a $900,000 budget. The two figures appear to describe different stages of planning and production, rather than two confirmed final costs.
Where was the Thriller zombie dance filmed?+
The dance was shot on East Union Pacific Avenue near South Calzona Street in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. Other scenes used the Palace Theatre downtown and a house exterior on Carroll Avenue in Angelino Heights. The graveyard scene was made on a soundstage, according to *Los Angeles Magazine*.
Did the Thriller video double album sales?+
The video was followed by a sharp sales rise, but “doubled” is too neat a claim without a clear time period and a solid count. The *Washington Post* reported 650,000 additional album sales in the week after the MTV premiere, citing Jackson’s publicist. The album was already a huge seller before the film appeared.