LOS ANGELES,  (Reuters Life!) – A small group of  Michael Jackson’s dedicated fans have started an “awareness”  campaign surrounding the upcoming movie “This is It,” saying it  covers up the grim reality of the dead pop star’s final days.  

The group represents fans from at least 10 countries who  claim the movie, which hits theaters around the world on Oct.  28 and is based on Jackson’s rehearsals for a series of London  concerts, conceals the “dire state” of his health while  enriching its promoters that they hold partly responsible for  his death on June 25.  

“In the weeks leading up to Michael Jackson’s death, while  this footage was being shot, people around him knew that he  looked like he might have died. Those who stood to make a  profit chose to ignore it,” the group says on its website,  www.this-is-not-it.com.  
Jackson was preparing for the concerts at the time of his  sudden death, which was ruled a homicide by the Los Angeles  County Coroner and attributed to an overdose of the powerful  anesthetic propofol as well as the sedative lorazepam.  

Police have focused their investigation into his death on  the entertainer’s personal physician, Dr Conrad Murray. So far,  no charges have been filed. 

Kenny Ortega, the director of “This is It” who also was  choreographing the concert rehearsals, told Reuters earlier  this week that he saw no signs of drug dependency in Jackson,  that the singer was excited to be performing and that the film  was not intended to make a profit.  

In a separate interview yesterday, Ortega called the  movie a “musical mosaic…that I think will help the fans come  to appreciate and understand what Michael was putting into  “This Is It”, what his dreams were for it, what his goals were  for it.”  

“It is a story of a master of his craft, a great genius in  his final theatrical work and creative process,” Ortega said.  

The concert promoters, AEG Live, did not return calls for  comment.  

The group is made up largely of longtime Jackson fans, some  of whom have spent time with the entertainer over the years and  attended nearly every day of his 2005 child molestation trial.  

They say they became so concerned about Jackson’s health  that on June 21, four days before his death, they wrote to him  asking him to stop the tour if he was not up to it.