"Musk" Documentary Pulled from Almost Every One of 472 Theaters After One Week

hlieberman

Ah, censorship.

dmix

Gizmodo has a better article > Its limited four-theater release in New York and Los Angeles on October 9 had a respectable opening weekend gross—each screen earning an average of $17,225 for a $68,900 total. Expanding to more theaters in more markets was the logical next step, which its distributor Bleeker Street Films did last Friday, raising the number of screens to 472. But Musk’s wider-debut was an unmitigated flop, netting a paltry $614 per screen, for an abysmal second weekend total of $290,000. Box Office Mojo has the film’s to-date total up to $571,902, as of this article’s publication. https://gizmodo.com/it-seems-like-the-critical-musk-doc-just... The article also questions this showbiz411 article > Showbiz411’s post claims the doc is “gone from almost every theater in America,” save “one or two odd places that didn’t get the memo.” It attempts to substantiate its case by saying the list of theaters on Bleeker Street’s website for Musk showtimes “shows that all 472 were listed as playing the movie today. But no more.” There’s no elaboration as to what that means. The only sort of receipt we’re offered is a blurry, unzoomable screenshot below of… the list of theaters showing the doc prior to the purported change. > The blog also has an unsourced line that “online, people started commenting earlier this week that shows they’d bought tickets for were canceled without warning.” I was able to find a Reddit post backing that up. But no other outlet of good or ill repute is saying Musk’s been pulled.

tkcranny

Gotta give a thumbs down to the reporting here. At no point did it explain _why_ it’s disappearing. I was curious, and after reading it I still am. Did it catastrophically flop so the cinemas are ditching screenings? Is the mention of some small cinemas “not getting the memo” just a turn of phrase or is there some distributor/studios/licensing thing killing it?

mjmsmith

I can believe that this film would have trouble finding an audience. On the one hand, I'm a huge fan of Alex Gibney's documentaries and I would normally be enthusiastic about a new film. On the other hand, I find Elon Musk utterly loathsome and, more importantly, completely uninteresting beyond his loathsomeness. I just can't work up any desire to spend a few hours with the man. Compare this with You Can See Everything. I think Elizabeth Holmes is a fraud, but at least she's an interesting fraud. [Hmmm, this was briefly flagged/dead?]

silverFork

Between Melania and Musk, which one would go to see?