Disney won't release Michael Moore Film

sistercoyote · Post by **sistercoyote** » Wed May 05, 2004 12:28 pm

I guess this goes here

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS - news) has barred its Miramax film studio from distributing a documentary by director Michael Moore (news) that is critical of President Bush (news - web sites), Moore said on Wednesday.

Weeble · Post by **Weeble** » Wed May 05, 2004 2:48 pm

Eisner is worried about tax breaks he gets in Florida from Dubya's bro. Good grief. Scary times we are living in.

coldfire409 · Post by **coldfire409** » Wed May 05, 2004 8:20 pm

Weeble wrote:Eisner is worried about tax breaks he gets in Florida from Dubya's bro. Good grief. Scary times we are living in.

Not to mention Reedy Creak. Several times the state has threatend to take away Reedy Creak from Disney, but some how it has never happened.

Pschtyckque · Post by **Pschtyckque** » Wed May 05, 2004 8:21 pm

Isn't Eisner's regime over? Why does he still get this kind of control? Plus, doesn't he realize that there's a little thing called "Freedom of Speech"? He's reinforcing the censorship sub-theme of the "Fahrenheit 451" reference of the film.

I, for one, can't wait to see this movie.

BirdMom · Post by **BirdMom** » Thu May 06, 2004 7:20 pm

I got really mad when I saw Eisner on the news last night claiming that the company wanted to remain politically neutral in an election year - still can't forgive ABC for pulling the plug on Bill Maher...

It was rather disingenuous of Eisner to say that the company is politically neutral, because I sure as hell remember getting all these mailers from the company telling me how to vote whenever there was a proposition or some sort of initiative on the California ballot that would affect transportation or infrastructure around the park...it's just plain BS on Eisner's part and he knows it!

sistercoyote · Post by **sistercoyote** » Fri May 07, 2004 2:38 pm

Pschtyckque wrote:Plus, doesn't he realize that there's a little thing called "Freedom of Speech"?

Regardless of the rest of your commentary, keep in mind that "Freedom of Speech" only prevents the government from muzzling expression, not corporations or CEOs.

BirdMom · Post by **BirdMom** » Fri May 07, 2004 2:42 pm

sistercoyote wrote:Regardless of the rest of your commentary, keep in mind that "Freedom of Speech" only prevents the government from muzzling expression, not corporations or CEOs.

Ya got us on that one...the corporate part is what sucks, doncha think?

sistercoyote · Post by **sistercoyote** » Fri May 07, 2004 3:32 pm

You'll get no arguement from me on that point; the corporations often behave as though they were a fourth branch (fifth branch?) of government anyway.

But, alas, we cannot nail Eisner to the "free Speech," uh, cross yet.

Pschtyckque · Post by **Pschtyckque** » Fri May 07, 2004 7:56 pm

Fine. Point taken. Freedom of speech/censorship is very similar in this case. Eisner is basically censoring this movie to save his tax breaks in Florida.

I believe this movie will still come out, just with a different company.

Dante101 · Post by **Dante101** » Sat May 08, 2004 12:36 am

Very interesting.

Michael Moore says that a year ago, Eisner told his agent that he was worried about Jeb Bush and the tax breaks in Florida, and that Disney (Buena Vista) would not distribute his film.

But no one told this to Miramax, who continued to tell Michael that everything was fine. Contractually Disney can only stop Miramax from releasing a film if it gets an X or NC-17 rating (and this film is sure to be a PG-13, or possibly an R). So the Miramax people kept telling Michael everything was fine, and on top of that, the money for making the film kept rolling in from Disney - a total of around $6 million during this past year.

So Disney already paid for the film to be made, but now they're too scared to put it out and make a profit from it.

Reminds me of the Sex Pistols, who got signed to EMI Records in the late 70's. EMI soon got worried about the band's public behavior and fired them soon afterwards; but they had to buy off the band's contract, which meant the Sex Pistols got paid around £50,000 after only releasing one single.

A short time after this, the band signed to A&M Records, who dropped the band after a week for the same reasons. Only this time, the band got paid £75,000 and did nothing at all!