Not content with lambasting the Bush administration, Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is now poised to bite the very hand that feeds it - albeit inadvertently.
One of Moore's prime targets is the Carlyle Group, a Washington DC-based investment firm that allegedly links the Bush and Bin Laden families. The trouble is that the company recently became co-owner of the very cinema chain due to screen Fahrenheit 9/11 across America.
On its US release this Friday, Moore's film will play on 59 screens of the Loews cinema chain. But Variety reports that the chain is now part-owned by the Carlyle Group, a defence contractor that Moore derides as a war profiteer with extensive ties with the Bin Ladens and the Saudi royal family. The first president Bush worked as a highly paid adviser to the company, while James Baker - chief of staff under Ronald Reagan - is currently employed as a senior counsellor.
Yesterday the film's independent distributor, Lion's Gate Films Releasing, appeared to be steering clear of the controversy, claiming that they were not even aware of the Carlyle Group's involvement in the Loews chain. "Loews has been very supportive," said Lion's Gate president Tom Ortenberg.
In the meantime, Fahrenheit 9/11 is being tipped for a healthy opening in the US this Friday. Industry experts are already predicting that the film will go on to be history's biggest grossing documentary, surpassing the $58m global record set by Moore's previous film, Bowling for Columbine.
According to Paul Dergarabedian of the box office tracker Exhibitor Relations, the controversy surrounding the film places it in a win-win situation. "If you love Moore, it's a no-brainer: you have to see it," he reasons. "But if you're one of his detractors, you have to know thy enemy's message."
Fahrenheit 9/11 opens in the UK on July 9.
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