I dont know if you all have heard about this but FARANHEIT 9/11 Moores next movie after Bowling for Columbine will not come out in the US. Because it has a lot of incriminating evidence against President Bush.. I dont know about you people but i was looking forward to this movei...??
It will come out, just not through Disney (who said all along that they wouldn't release it so their subsidiary should not finance it. The head of that subsidiary financed it anyway and Moore signed with them despite knowing Disney's position regarding distribution). Lot of info in the thread about it in the D&D Forum: http://bbs.clutchcity.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=77222
Moore conveniently leaves out the fact that Disney's contract with Harvey Weinstein doesn't allow them to prevent Miramax from financing whatever they want to finance with the money budgeted to Miramax in any given year, but Disney is under no obligation to distribute any of those films. Harvey's the bad guy for signing a contract that provided for more than what he could deliver and financing a film he knew his bosses wouldn't distribute. Disney contractually can only stop Miramax from releasing a film if it has received an NC-17 rating (ours will be rated PG-13 or R). According to reporting at the time of Disney's purchasing Miramax, that is not true. "Michael Moore has known for a year that we will not distribute this movie, so this is not news." Yes, that is what I thought, too, except Disney kept sending us all that money to make the movie. Miramax said there was no problem. I got the idea that everything was fine. That's not Disney being Pinnochio. I knew for almost a year that Disney didn't want to distribute the film. I also know (and I'm sure Moore knows as well, but it doesn't make as good a story) that Miramax can do what they want with their budget and Disney cannot contractually stop it. The fact that Miramax continued to try to reassure him makes Miramax the bad guys, but Moore refuses to say a word against them. "Mr. Moore is doing this as a publicity stunt." Michael Eisner reportedly said this the other day while he was at a publicity stunt cutting the ribbon for the new "Tower of Terror" ride (what a pleasant name considering what the country has gone through recently) at Disney's California Adventure Park. Let me tell you something: NO filmmaker wants to go through this kind of controversy. It does NOT sell tickets (I can cite many examples of movies who have had to change distributors at the last minute and all have failed). I made this movie so people could see it as soon as possible. This is a huge and unwanted distraction. I want people discussing the issues raised in my film, not some inside Hollywood fracas surrounding who is going to ship the prints to the theaters. Plus, I think it is fairly safe to say that Fahrenheit 9/11 has a good chance of doing just fine, considering that my last movie set a box office record and the subject matter (Bush, the War on Terror, the War in Iraq) is at the forefront of most people's minds. But since this is coming now instead of coming all throughout the year or immediate after Disney publically said they would not distribute the film and acting all surprised and painting Disney in a way that isn't true sure makes it come across as a publicity stunt. You can't help but think that, especially if you're Michael Eisner and know that Moore's people knew a year ago that Disney wasn't going to release the film. The timing of this, coming right as the film is about to debut at Cannes is suspicious. So what will happen to my movie? I still don't know. What I do know is that I will make sure all of you see it by hook or crook. We are Americans. There are a lot of screwed up things about us right now, but one thing that most of us have in common is that we don't like someone telling us we can't see something. We despise censors, and the worst censors are those who would dare to limit thoughts and ideas and silence dissent. THAT is un-American. If I have to travel across the country and show it in city parks (or, as one person offered yesterday, to show it on the side of his house for the neighborhood to see), that is what I will do There are plenty of companies that would love to distribute this movie. Newmarket or Lion's Gate would be the two off the top of my head. If Disney won't let the movie be released anywhere in the U.S. by anyone (they do own it, after all), then we can talk about Disney doing wrong, but so far, all they've done is make their intentions clear for a year all while one of their underlings went against his bosses and made promises he couldn't deliver, taking advantage of his contractual status to finance the film knowing that Disney would never distribute it (and would never have financed it had they had that control over Miramax).
