Disney pulls plug on new Michael Moore film

The Disney corporation announced last week that it is banning 
its subsidiary, Miramax Films, from distributing the latest film 
by comedian and best selling author of Stupid White Men, 
Michael Moore. Fahrenheit 9/11 explores the decades-long 
relationship between the Bush family and that of Osama bin Laden. 
It also probes the details of the attack on the World Trade 
Center in 2001 and the role of the Administration in events like 
the evacuation of bin Laden's relatives from the US after the 
terrorist outrage. Until last week's announcement, the film 
looked set to follow up the success of Bowling for 
Columbine, which grossed US$58 million worldwide. Michael 
Moore recently wrote to his supporters to give the background to 
the latest bombshell from Disney:

Dear Friends,

Thank you for all the incredible letters of support as my film 
crew and I once again slog our way through the corporate media 
madhouse. Does it ever end? Are we ever going to get control of 
our "free press" again? Can you wish upon a star?

The Disney spin machine has been working overtime dealing with 
this censorship debacle of theirs. I don't think they thought 
they would ever be outed. After all, they know that all of us are 
supposed to adhere to the unwritten Hollywood Code: Never tell 
the public how business is done here, never let them have a peek 
at the man behind the curtain.

Disney has been hoping for nearly a year that they could keep 
this thing quiet. As I promised on Wednesday, here are the 
details behind my sordid adventure with the Magic Kingdom:

In April of 2003, I signed a deal with Miramax, a division of the 
Walt Disney Co., to finance and distribute my next movie, 
Fahrenheit 9/11. (The original financier had backed out; I 
will tell that story at a later date.) In my contract it is 
stated that Miramax will distribute my film in the US through 
Disney's distribution arm, Buena Vista Distribution. It also 
gives Miramax the rights to distribute and sell the movie around 
the world.

A month later, after shooting started, Michael Eisner insisted on 
meeting with my agent, Ari Emanuel. Eisner was furious that 
Miramax signed this deal with me. According to Mr Emanuel, Eisner 
said he would never let my film be distributed through Disney 
even though Mr Eisner had not seen any footage or even read the 
outline of the film. Eisner told my agent that he did not want to 
anger Jeb Bush, the governor of Florida. The movie, he believed, 
would complicate an already complicated situation with current 
and future Disney projects in Florida, and that many millions of 
dollars of tax breaks and incentives were at stake.

But Michael Eisner did not call Miramax and tell them to stop my 
film. Not only that, for the next year, SIX MILLION dollars of 
DISNEY money continued to flow into the production of making my 
movie. Miramax assured me that there were no distribution 
problems with my film.

But then, a few weeks ago when Fahrenheit 9/11 was 
selected to be in the Cannes Film Festival, Disney sent a low-
level production executive to New York to watch the film (to this 
day, Michael Eisner has not seen the film). This exec was 
enthusiastic throughout the viewing. He laughed, he cried and at 
the end he thanked us. "This film is explosive", he exclaimed, 
and we took that as a positive sign. But "explosive" for these 
guys is only a good word when it comes to blowing up things in 
movies. OUR kind of "explosive" is what they want to run from as 
fast as they can.

Miramax did their best to convince Disney to go ahead as planned 
with our film. 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 yesterday's New York Times, the issue of 
whether to release Fahrenheit 9/11 was discussed at 
Disney's board meeting last week. It was decided that Disney 
should not distribute our movie.

Earlier this week we got the final, official call: Disney will 
not put out Fahrenheit 9/11. When the story broke in the 
New York Times, Disney, instead of telling the truth, 
turned into Pinocchio.

Here are my favorite nuggets that have come out of the mouths of 
their spinmeisters (roughly quoted):

"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.

"It is not in the best interests of our company to distribute a 
partisan political film that may offend some of our customers." 
Hmmm. Disney doesn't distribute work that has partisan politics? 
Disney distributes and syndicates the Sean Hannity radio show 
every day? I get to listen to Rush Limbaugh every day on Disney-
owned WABC. I also seem to remember that Disney distributed a 
very partisan political movie during a Congressional election 
year, 1998 — a film called The Big One by, um ME!

"Fahrenheit 9/11 is not the Disney brand; we put out 
family oriented films." So true. That's why the #1 Disney film in 
theaters right now is a film called, KILL BILL, VOL. 2. This 
excellent Miramax film, along with other classics like Pulp 
Fiction, have all been distributed by Disney. That's why Miramax 
exists — to provide an ALTERNATIVE to the usual Disney fare. 
And, unless they were NC-17, Disney has distributed 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.

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.

More to come, stay tuned.

Yours, Michael Moore

http://www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com