Michael Moore admits Disney 'ban' was a stunt

[Cool Hand Luke 22:36]

Lying Leftist Liars and the Lies they tell......

_______________________________________________________

07.05.2004

By ANDREW GUMBEL in Los Angeles

Less than 24 hours after accusing the Walt Disney Company of pulling the plug on his latest documentary in a blatant attempt at political censorship, the rabble-rousing film-maker Michael Moore has admitted he knew a year ago that Disney had no intention of distributing it.

The admission, during an interview with CNN, undermined Moore's claim that Disney was trying to sabotage the US release of Fahrenheit 911 just days before its world premiere at the Cannes film festival.

Instead, it lent credence to a growing suspicion that Moore was manufacturing a controversy to help publicise the film, a full-bore attack on the Bush administration and its handling of national security since the attacks of 11 September 2001.

In an indignant letter to his supporters, Moore said he had learnt only on Monday that Disney had put the kibosh on distributing the film, which has been financed by the semi-independent Disney subsidiary Miramax.

But in the CNN interview he said: "Almost a year ago, after we'd started making the film, the chairman of Disney, Michael Eisner, told my agent he was upset Miramax had made the film and he will not distribute it."

Nobody in Hollywood doubts Fahrenheit 911 will find a US distributor. His last documentary, Bowling for Columbine, made for US$3m pulled in US$22m at the US box office.

But Moore's publicity stunt, if that is what is, appears to be working.

A front-page news piece in The New York Times was followed yesterday by an editorial denouncing Disney for censorship and denial of Moore's right to free expression.

Moore told CNN that Disney had "signed a contract to distribute this [film]" but got cold feet. But Disney executives insists there was never any contract. And a source close to Miramax said that the only deal there was for financing, not for distribution.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3565069&thesection=news&thesubsection=world

 

[Hkmp5sd]

More on Moore...

Michael Moore Denies "Partisan" Label
Posted: 5 May 2004

By Evan Coyne Maloney The New York Times reports that Disney has declined to distribute Michael Moore's upcoming film Fahrenheit 9/11 through its Miramax subsidiary.

Now, before the predictable conspiracy talk starts, the article states that "Miramax is free to seek another distributor in North America, although such a deal would force it to share profits and be a blow to Harvey Weinstein, a big donor to Democrats." In other words, the film will see the light of day, it just won't be Disney shareholders who assume the financial risk of distributing it.

While Moore's representatives claim that Disney's decision is based on a desire to keep tax breaks for its Florida theme parks, the article cites a senior Disney executive on what may be the real reason:

Mr. Moore's film, the executive said, is deemed to be against Disney's interests not because of the company's business dealings with the government but because Disney caters to families of all political stripes and believes Mr. Moore's film could alienate many.

"It's not in the interest of any major corporation to be dragged into a highly charged partisan political battle," this executive said.

Later in the article, the Times says Mr. Moore denied the partisan label:

Mr. Moore does not disagree that "Fahrenheit 9/11" is highly charged, but he took issue with the description of it as partisan. "If this is partisan in any way it is partisan on the side of the poor and working people in this country who provide fodder for this war machine," he said.

In order to believe the denial of partisanship, you have to believe that the timing of the film's release (just weeks before the election), the target of the film (George W. Bush) and Mr. Moore's past statements about the need to defeat President Bush are all mere coincidences.

Based on what you know of Michael Moore, do you think Fahrenheit 9/11 is likely to be partisan? If you're not sure, here are a few choice quotes from Michael Moore's Call to Arms, a video interview with Michael Moore posted on Brain Terminal last September:

- Michael Moore on why he does his work: "I create my work so that we end up with a country that is being run by a set of values and a political agenda."

- Michael Moore on who's responsible for September 11th: "I think Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Lott and the Republican Party owe the American people and the families of those 3,000 dead a huge <expletive deleted> apology."

- Michael Moore on the 1998 Congressional elections: "What better year to come on the air when we got to watch the Republican Party go down in flames."

- Michael Moore on Hillary Clinton: "Maybe she should be the one who should be President instead of the other guy in the White House."

- Michael Moore on President Bush: "Commander-in-Thief."

- Michael Moore on the Bush Administration: "They were able to steal our White House from us."

- Michael Moore on the John Ashcroft: "John Ashcroft and his ilk are something to fear. They are stealing our country from us."

- Michael Moore on uniting the left: "Democrats and Greens have got to come together and form a coalition and get that guy out of the White House."

- Michael Moore on the 2004 Presidential election: "We do need to remove Bush in 2004. There's no doubt about that."

Is Michael Moore partisan? I guess we'll just have to take him at his word.

Brain Terminal
Michael Moore's Call to Arms - Video

 

[critter]

MM is only a user of oxygen from the planet's atmosphere that actual living things could better use.

 

[flatrock]

The man lies, lies, and then lies some more. He's a fraud who makes a fortune off of stirring up dissent among people who can't seem to think for themselves and see through his rather transparrent lies.

Whatever happend to the time when credibility was important?

Why are so many people in the news media and so many liberals still supporting this fraud?

If you have to convince people that your policies are correct by constantly lieing and misleading them, then you need to seriously reconsider if your policies are truley in their best interest.

 

[Harry Tuttle]

the man has made a soft yummy pact with the donutman

 

[ravinraven]

I love the First.....

....Amendment. Without it, MM, the planet's number two oxygen waster just behind Rall, would have to shut up and that would deny me some of the greatest laughs I've had lately.

If only a comedy writer could write such stuff for a stand-up comedian...What a show that would be. But MM doesn't even have to break a sweat to come up with high humor.

I do hope people like Rall, MM, Chap-Of-Quick-Dick Teddy and others I can't even remember right now keep it up. I do believe that their putrid blatherings are making even dummies wake up to them. If you depend on fools as a political resource at election time as the left does and they start waking up, that's bad news for said leftists.

Leftist. Liberal. Commie. Nazi. Totalitarianist. Stalinist. Hitlerite. Statist. Intolerant Goon.

Hmmmmm. How many other ways are there to say the same thing?

rr

 

[HBK]

Figures. What a freakin' loser. His country and my country are apparently two different nations. Mine is the USA. His sounds like the old USSR.

 

[w4rma]

The thrust of the article and it's headline are downright wrong. Here is the portion of the transcript the article refers to. Moore says no such thing, here.

…
MOORE: What I know is, is that Michael Eisner went and had a meeting with my agent, Ari Emanuel at Endeavor, and told him at this meeting that there is no way he will allow Miramax to distribute Michael Moore's film, because, in doing so, it will anger Jeb Bush and put Disney at risk in Florida. They were up for millions of dollars of task abatements, tax incentives, whatever.

BROWN: They deny -- they don't deny the meeting, obviously, with the agent. They deny that they said that. No doubt in your mind that was said?

MOORE: No, no doubt at all.

BROWN: OK.

MOORE: Oh, absolutely not.

In fact, I got a phone call immediately after the meeting. I was told this. And we decided, along with Miramax, to do our best to try and convince Disney to do the right thing. And we have spent months trying to do that. We have been very quiet about this.

BROWN: This has gone on pretty much a year, hasn't it?

MOORE: Yes, that's right.

BROWN: Why not a year ago just go find another way to get the movie out there?

MOORE: Because a year ago, we were already making the film. We already had a deal. We had a contract with Miramax to distribute the film. And this happened all after we did this deal.

And Miramax felt very confident that Disney, once they saw the film, would distribute it.
…
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0405/05/asb.00.html

 

[Cool Hand Luke 22:36]

W4rma:

The point of the article is the timing issue. Moore has known for around a year that Disney-Miramax would not be distributing his film, yet he claims to have just learned about it. There has not been any open-endedness about Disney-Miramax's refusal to distribute his film which might have misled Moore untill some recent final rejection. He simply lied about the suddenness of the rejection.

From the article:

"In an indignant letter to his supporters, Moore said he had learnt only on Monday that Disney had put the kibosh on distributing the film, which has been financed by the semi-independent Disney subsidiary Miramax.

But in the CNN interview he said: "Almost a year ago, after we'd started making the film, the chairman of Disney, Michael Eisner, told my agent he was upset Miramax had made the film and he will not distribute it." "

Heres just another in a very long list of Moore's lies from the interview transcript which you left out:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/06/moore.disney/index.html

"So Disney signed a contract to distribute this, they got cold feet, they're afraid. Yes, the Bushes will not like this movie ... they will really not like this movie. Because we're going to show things like they haven't seen before about the Bush family, about the war in Iraq and a number of other things."

Again, there never was a contract for Disney to distribute this film, there has never been any open-endedness about this refusal. Moore is simply lying.

Disney's statement appears in another CNN transcript:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/05/moore.disney/index.html

"We advised both (Moore's) agent and Miramax in May of 2003 that the film would not be distributed by Miramax," said Zenia Mucha, a company spokeswoman.

Again, Moore has known for a solid year that Disney-Miramax would not be distributing his film.

If Moore has a contract with Disney-Miramax to distribute the film then we'd be seeing Moore's lawyers doing interviews about the breach of contract lawsuit he'd be filing right about now.