Thriller (Michael Jackson album) and John Landis. Funded by MTV, the film sold over 350,000 copies in its first few months. In a market then driven by singles, "Thriller" raised the significance of albums, yet its multiple hit singles changed perceived notions as to the number of successful singles that could be taken from an individual album. The era saw the arrival of novelties like the Michael Jackson doll, that appeared in stores in May 1984 at a price of $12 (US$ in dollars). "Thriller" retains a position in American culture; biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli explains, "At some point, "Thriller" stopped selling like a
Social thriller thriller. It might be called a social thriller—a creepy, tightly knit suspense film that, on the fly, reveals more about the lives of immigrants in London than the most scrupulously earnest documentary." Other films labeled as social thrillers from the first decade-and-a-half of the new millennium include 2005's British production of "The Constant Gardener" and the 2008 Italian film "As God Commands", both based on the best-selling novels of the same names. The "Wall Street Journal" called 2011's "The Social Network" "Part morality play, part social thriller," the 2012 Canadian child abduction film "The Tall Man" got called a social