MORE DRAMA REVEALED BY THE JACKSON PROMOTERS...

The promoters behind Michael Jackson's ill-fated This Is It comeback shows balked at the spiralling costs of the production when the budget shot up from $7 million to $24 million as the King of Pop perfected his act. And when Jackson suggested Africa's Victoria Falls be recreated onstage, the concert bosses decided enough was enough. The pop superstar died in June (09), just weeks before the show was set to debut at the O2 Arena in London - and Randy Phillips, the president of promotion firm AEG Live which organized the concerts, insists they would have been spectacular, and expensive.

He says, "The original budget was seven-and-a-half million dollars (and) I knew when we did the deal, knowing Michael, it would go to 10, maybe 12; by the time it hit 24, I was actually ready to jump off the balcony because we were running out of time, running out of money.
"He said to us he wanted us to recreate Victoria Falls... We looked at each other and said, 'How are we gonna do that?' "We were able to talk him out of the waterfall."