Moore’s ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ Has Hollywood Buzzing
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The White House calls the film “outrageously false,” but Hollywood is hot for “Fahrenheit 9/11,” documentary filmmaker Michael Moore’s caustic broadside at President Bush.
A day after the film won the top Palme d’Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival in France, industry observers on Sunday predicted the controversial movie would be a box office hit, even if some early reviews have hardly been favorable.
“I think it will be hugely successful,” said D.A. Pennebaker, veteran documentary director whose films include the Oscar-nominated 1992 election campaign saga “The War Room.” “It’s going to get a lot of publicity.”
In “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Moore takes aim at Bush’s handling of Iraq and the war on terror and traces links between the Bush family and prominent Saudis including the family of Osama bin Laden. It was greeted with a rapturous standing ovation at its Cannes world premiere, but not everyone was impressed.
Dan Barlett, the White House communications director, was quoted by the New York Times last week as saying of the film “it is so outrageously false, it’s not even worth comment.”
Also critical was the review in the entertainment industry journal Daily Variety which called the film a “blatant cinematic 2004 campaign pamphlet” and said it “fails to provide any hard facts or make any incriminating connections that a reasonably informed person doesn’t already know about.”
That may not matter to the fans of the man behind “Roger & Me,” and the anti-gun documentary “Bowling for Columbine.” Moore, in fact, laid the groundwork for “Fahrenheit 9/11” a year ago when he accepted the Oscar for “Columbine,” and launched into a tirade against Bush on worldwide television.
A few weeks ago he was back in the news again, complaining that Walt Disney Co. had prevented its Miramax Films unit from releasing “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Disney said it did not want to be associated with a political hot potato in an election year, and noted that Moore had known this for a year.
Miramax co-chairmen Harvey and Bob Weinstein are in the process of buying the movie with their own money and lining up a distributor, which is not expected to be a big problem.
Thanks to Moore’s knack for self-promotion, “everybody in America is going to know about this movie, if they don’t know about it already,” said Michael Silberman, president of distribution at IDP Distribution, which recently released “Super Size Me,” a documentary about the perils of fast food.
“Bowling for Columbine” is the most successful documentary in North America with ticket sales of $21.5 million. His new one should at least match that, industry executives say.
“Whether you like Harvey or not, he’s a die-hard Democrat and he’s going to see to it this film gets exposed. It’s going to make a lot of money,” said T.C. Rice, president of distribution at New York-based independent studio Manhattan Pictures.
Moore has said he wants “Fahrenheit 9/11” to come out as soon as possible so that it will influence the November presidential election and send Bush back to Texas.
That could be a tall order, according to Kim Serafin, a politically moderate radio talk show host in Los Angeles.
“He’ll have lots of applause from the people he’s already preaching to, the people that already like him and believe in him and think he’s a great filmmaker,” she said. “And the people who don’t … they weren’t going to see this movie anyway.”
On the other hand, the Cannes win has given the film some legitimacy, and the film could bring out Moore-haters if only so that they can “know thy enemy,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations.
“When people are talking about a movie like this, they want to see what all the fuss is about. In an election year it’s all the more appealing to people because everybody’s in this political mode,” he said.
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