photo credit: henrybloomfield

The fight over Michael Jackson’s fortune has begun.

According to an Associated Press report, Jackson’s mother took the first step Monday when she petitioned the Superior Court of California to be named the administrator of the late singer’s estate. Katherine Jackson said in the filing she was acting to ensure Michael Jackson’s three children are the beneficiaries.

The AP called this the opening salvo in the battle over Jackson’s estate, which includes a lucrative music catalog of the King of Pop’s own hits, the rights to songs by the Beatles, and the Neverland ranch that could one day be a tourist attraction.

The amount of money at stake and the array of people involved will make this struggle more complicated than those over the estates of other celebrities like Anna Nicole Smith and James Brown, according to the AP.

“There’s no doubt that there’s going to be a big battle,” the AP quoted Alexis Martin Neely, a Los Angeles-based estate attorney, as saying. “It’s going to be very messy and I don’t see anything comparing to this,” he concluded.