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
Thriller (Michael Jackson album) one hundred and sixty six thousand copies, just fourteen thousand short of reaching the number one position. It was ineligible for the "Billboard" 200 chart as a re-release but entered the Pop Catalog Charts at number one (where it stayed for ten non-consecutive weeks), with the best sales on that chart since December 1996. With the arrival of Halloween that November, "Thriller 25" spent an eleventh non-consecutive week atop the US catalog chart. This brought US sales of the album to 688,000 copies, making it the best-selling catalog album of 2008. This was Jackson's best launch since "Invincible" in 2001,