One suspects this was expected. Documentary filmmaker and muckraker Michael Moore is steady at work on a new political documentary centering on the 2016 election and President Donald Trump. The film – entitled Fahrenheit 11/9 – has just been acquired by the Bob and Harvey Weinstein, who secured worldwide distribution rights to the title through their Fellowship Adventure Group.
The title is taken from the day after last year’s election and the day it was confirmed that Trump would become the 45th President of the United States. It’s also a riff on Moore’s 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, a bristling takedown of George W. Bush’s presidency and the Iraq War. (The original title itself was a play on Ray Bradbury’s classic dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451, which itself is being adapted into an upcoming HBO movie.)
Moore commented on the project: “No matter what you throw at him, it hasn’t worked. No matter what is revealed, he remains standing. Facts, reality, brains cannot defeat him. Even when he commits a self-inflicted wound, he gets up the next morning and keeps going and tweeting. That all ends with this movie.” This no-holds barred approach has been consistent in Moore’s filmmaking since his debut feature – the classic 1989 documentary Roger & Me. He has since directed the gun-rights doc Bowling for Columbine (which won him an Oscar), health care treatise Sicko and financial report doc Capitalism: A Love Story. In 2015, he debuted Where to Invade Next and last year attempted to connect with Trump supporters with Michael Moore in Trumpland.
Fahrenheit 11/9 was shot in the cloak of night and has, until now, remained a secret project for the filmmaker-pundit-activist. As with Fahrenheit 9/11 – which won the Palme d’Or at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and remains the highest grossing documentary feature of all-time with over $200 million in worldwide box office receipts – Moore shot the film with the aid and support of fellow documentarians Meghan O’Hara, Tia Lessin, and Carl Deal.
Notably, Moore was one of the few who accurately predicted that Trump would win last year’s election, suggesting he would break through the “blue wall” of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
The Weinsteins released a comment, stating, “There is no greater part of what we can do right now than to have the power to bring Michael Moore to a mass audience. When we had the opportunity to work with him on Fahrenheit 9/11, we were so persistent that we ultimately had to part ways from Disney and we lost our beloved Miramax, named after our parents, because we believed so strongly in the message. The movie broke all records then, and we plan to do so again. This movie will have one of the most innovative distribution plans ever. Now more than ever, Michael’s appetite for the truth is crucial. We are ecstatic to be a part of this revolution.”
We will stay tuned to Fahrenheit 11/9. As of now, no release date has been announced.
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