When Disney refused to allow its Miramax subsidiary to have anything to do with Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11" (which I have yet to see, but will soon, I hope), there was rampant speculation that the reasons were political, that Disney needed something (tax relief?) from Jeb Bush in Florida and was worried about pissing off the notoriously loyalistic Bush clan. I originally bought into that explanation, but the more I think about it, the more I believe the answer lies instead in the pressure that Michael Eisner, CEO of Disney, is under from Roy Disney, Walt Disney's nephew. Roy is trying to oust Eisner, and has had some modest success in taking him down a little. His basic claim is that Disney should concentrate on its core businesses and brands, and that it's doing stuff (via Touchstone, Hollywood Pictures and Miramax, for instance) that Walt would never had done were he still running the company.
In short, Eisner's under attack from the (business, not political) right, and the last thing he needed was to have the company connected to what was going to be an very controversial film blasting the person occupying the Oval Office -- certainly that's something that notoriously conservative and authoritarian Walt would never had done, and it would have provided Roy with a huge hammer to hit Eisner over the head with.
(Now, of course, Roy can also say something like "If you're going to be in the business of doing things Walt wouldn't do, at least you should make money out of it, so why did you turn down the heaps of money to be made off of F9/11?," but (1) there's some doubt he would say that (he hasn't yet, to my knowledge) and (2) even if he did, it's not as strong a charge in the Disney world as disloyalty to The Founder's Vision.)
So, I think the answer to why Disney backed out has a lot more to do with the way Eisner's situation had changed from the time the company green-lighted the film (if I recall correctly, based on their agreement with the Weinsteins, Disney had to approve it because it fell above a certain budget figure) to when the film was due to be released, rather than political considerations (although it's still certainly possible that they also might have played a part in the decision-making process).
As for the question, raised by Chris Bowers on MyDD of whether not having Disney (Buena Vista, actually) as the distributor has hurt the films receipts because it did not open on as many screens as other recent films, I believe that I read in Variety that F9/11's opening on 868 screens was the largest roll-out for any documentary to date, so I doubt that Disney's staying on as the distributor would have made much difference (except to Disney's bottom line). Not only that, but the controversy stirred up by Disney's refusal to distribute, and then its apparent unwillingness to give up the film, help to fuel interest in the film, which helped enable it to start on such a relatively large number of screens.
I just don't think you can compare a normal fiction film and a documentary in terms of how many screens they open on, nor do I think it's a good assumption that Disney would have opened the film on more screens if they had stayed involved. (For one thing, I assume that, as the producers of the film, Miramax and the Weinsteins would have been intimately involved in the release strategy if Disney had stayed on, and would have made about the same decisions. Also, there a limit to the number of screens that are available. Possibly, Disney being the powerhouse it is, more screens might have become available, but I'm not certain about that.)
Finally, what about Disney's involvement with the right-wing pressure group "Moving America Forward" (the people trying to stop theatres from showing F9/11) to showcase Disney's rah-rah film "America's Heart and Soul"? Digby sees in it treachery, assuming that the whole conflict between the company and the Weinsteins was a charade, that the ensuing deal was crafted to put money in everyone's pocket, and that, in his words, "the wingnuts are being played."
I don't see it. Under the deal made when Disney cut loose from involvement with F9/11, the Weinsteins, IFC Films and Lion's Gate will see profit, whatever company releases the DVD (to be determined) will probably see profit, and Moore will possibly see some profit as well. Somewhere down the line, a few bucks may filter into Disney's coffers, but the bulk of the money will be going to the companies that are distrubuting the film, the very role that Disney backed out of. Disney really did lose money by backing out, and the Weinsteins (who now own the film outright) gained a great deal.
It's possible that "America's Heart and Soul" is another part of Eisner's attempt to insulate himself from Roy Disney's attack, and it's also possible that Disney (the company) is using Moving America Forward (whose name was obviously chosen to be similar to MoveOn's) as a tool of some sort (to suppress F9/11 and reduce its embarrassment? I dunno), but I doubt Digby's theory that they're using MAF to (in some way) pump money into the Weinstein's pockets.
absolutist
aggresive
anti-Constitutional
anti-intellectual
arrogant
authoritarian
blame-placers
blameworthy
blinkered
buckpassers
calculating
class warriors
clueless
compassionless
con artists
conniving
conscienceless
conspiratorial
corrupt
craven
criminal
crooked
culpable
damaging
dangerous
deadly
debased
deceitful
delusional
despotic
destructive
devious
disconnected
dishonorable
dishonest
disingenuous
disrespectful
dogmatic
doomed
fanatical
fantasists
felonious
hateful
heinous
hostile to science
hypocritical
ideologues
ignorant
immoral
incompetent
indifferent
inflexible
insensitive
insincere
irrational
isolated
kleptocratic
lacking in empathy
lacking in public spirit
liars
mendacious
misleading
mistrustful
non-rational
not candid
not "reality-based"
not trustworthy
oblivious
oligarchic
opportunistic
out of control
pernicious
perverse
philistine
plutocratic
prevaricating
propagandists
rapacious
relentless
reprehensible
rigid
scandalous
schemers
selfish
secretive
shameless
sleazy
tricky
unAmerican
uncaring
uncivil
uncompromising
unconstitutional
undemocratic
unethical
unpopular
unprincipled
unrealistic
unreliable
unrepresentative
unscientific
unscrupulous
unsympathetic
venal
vile
virtueless
warmongers
wicked
without integrity
wrong-headed
Thanks to: Breeze, Chuck, Ivan Raikov, Kaiju, Kathy, Roger, Shirley, S.M. Dixon
recently seen
i've got a little list...
Elliott Abrams
Steven Abrams (Kansas BofE)
David Addington
Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson
Roger Ailes (FNC)
John Ashcroft
Bob Bennett
William Bennett
Joe Biden
John Bolton
Alan Bonsell (Dover BofE)
Pat Buchanan
Bill Buckingham (Dover BofE)
George W. Bush
Saxby Chambliss
Bruce Chapman (DI)
Dick Cheney
Lynne Cheney
Richard Cohen
The Coors Family
Ann Coulter
Michael Crichton
Lanny Davis
Tom DeLay
William A. Dembski
James Dobson
Leonard Downie (WaPo)
Dinesh D’Souza
Gregg Easterbrook
Jerry Falwell
Douglas Feith
Arthur Finkelstein
Bill Frist
George Gilder
Newt Gingrich
John Gibson (FNC)
Alberto Gonzalez
Rudolph Giuliani
Sean Hannity
Katherine Harris
Fred Hiatt (WaPo)
Christopher Hitchens
David Horowitz
Don Imus
James F. Inhofe
Jesse Jackson
Philip E. Johnson
Daryn Kagan
Joe Klein
Phil Kline
Ron Klink
William Kristol
Ken Lay
Joe Lieberman
Rush Limbaugh
Trent Lott
Frank Luntz
"American Fundamentalists"
by Joel Pelletier
(click on image for more info)
Chris Matthews
Mitch McConnell
Stephen C. Meyer (DI)
Judith Miller (ex-NYT)
Zell Miller
Tom Monaghan
Sun Myung Moon
Roy Moore
Dick Morris
Rupert Murdoch
Ralph Nader
John Negroponte
Grover Norquist
Robert Novak
Ted Olson
Elspeth Reeve (TNR)
Bill O'Reilly
Martin Peretz (TNR)
Richard Perle
Ramesh Ponnuru
Ralph Reed
Pat Robertson
Karl Rove
Tim Russert
Rick Santorum
Richard Mellon Scaife
Antonin Scalia
Joe Scarborough
Susan Schmidt (WaPo)
Bill Schneider
Al Sharpton
Ron Silver
John Solomon (WaPo)
Margaret Spellings
Kenneth Starr
Randall Terry
Clarence Thomas
Richard Thompson (TMLC)
Donald Trump
Richard Viguere
Donald Wildmon
Paul Wolfowitz
Bob Woodward (WaPo)
John Yoo
guest-blogging
All the fine sites I've
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recent listening
influences
John Adams
Laurie Anderson
Aphex Twin
Isaac Asimov
Fred Astaire
J.G. Ballard
The Beatles
Busby Berkeley
John Cage
"Catch-22"
Raymond Chandler
Arthur C. Clarke
Elvis Costello
Richard Dawkins
Daniel C. Dennett
Philip K. Dick
Kevin Drum
Brian Eno
Fela
Firesign Theatre
Eliot Gelwan
William Gibson
Philip Glass
David Gordon
Stephen Jay Gould
Dashiell Hammett
"The Harder They Come"
Robert Heinlein
Joseph Heller
Frank Herbert
Douglas Hofstadter
Bill James
Gene Kelly
Stanley Kubrick
Jefferson Airplane
Ursula K. LeGuin
The Marx Brothers
John McPhee
Harry Partch
Michael C. Penta
Monty Python
Orbital
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
"The Prisoner"
"The Red Shoes"
Steve Reich
Terry Riley
Oliver Sacks
Erik Satie
"Singin' in the Rain"
Stephen Sondheim
The Specials
Morton Subotnick
Talking Heads/David Byrne
Tangerine Dream
Hunter S. Thompson
J.R.R. Tolkien
"2001: A Space Odyssey"
Kurt Vonnegut
Yes
Bullshit, trolling, unthinking knee-jerk dogmatism and the drivel of idiots will be ruthlessly deleted and the posters banned.
Entertaining, interesting, intelligent, informed and informative comments will always be welcome, even when I disagree with them.
I am the sole judge of which of these qualities pertains.
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Corrections
I correct typos and other simple errors of grammar, syntax, style and presentation in my posts after the fact without necessarily posting notification of the change.
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the story so far
unfutz: toiling in almost complete obscurity for almost 1500 days
If you read unfutz at least once a week, without fail, your teeth will be whiter and your love life more satisfying.
If you read it daily, I will come to your house, kiss you on the forehead, bathe your feet, and cook pancakes for you, with yummy syrup and everything.
(You might want to keep a watch on me, though, just to avoid the syrup ending up on your feet and the pancakes on your forehead.)
Finally, on a more mundane level, since I don't believe that anyone actually reads this stuff, I make this offer: I'll give five bucks to the first person who contacts me and asks for it -- and, believe me, right now five bucks might as well be five hundred, so this is no trivial offer.
