Alex Gibney, director of the 3-hour, 45-minute Elon Musk-centered documentary “Musk,” discussed the lengths he went to to interview the tech billionaire for the film and why he thinks Universal Pictures was hesitant to plan an international release in a new interview with The New York Times.
Although Musk does not appear in the film (although Gibney created an avatar of him to simulate interviews in the documentary), the director said it wasn’t for lack of trying, explaining that he and producer Jessie Deeter “reached out.” “Deeter knew him from two previous films. She had his cell phone number. She had an email address,” Gibney said. “She wrote notes, sometimes folkloric, sometimes detailed, about how we wanted her perspective. Her response was to write ‘Gibney is an asshole’ on Twitter.”
Before the film’s release, Musk called it a “hit piece” and said “dog shit deserves more respect.” He added that Gibney “has no integrity” and is a “horrible human.”
Gibney also noted that he “reached out to a lot of friends and work colleagues, and a lot of them said, ‘I can’t talk to you because Elon won’t give you permission.'” He cited Ashley St. Clair, Musk’s former girlfriend and the mother of his 14th child, and Justine Musk, his first wife, as majors for the documentary.
And while it was reported last month that “Musk” would indeed get an international release despite the SpaceX founder’s legal threats, Gibney confirmed with a “Yes” that the studio had wavered on those release plans when the interviewer asked if that was the case. Asked what happened, Gibney replied: “Were they worried that in this political environment a movie about the richest man in the world would be problematic? Maybe, but you have to ask them.”
The newspaper notes that Universal declined to comment beyond what the company said in a previous statement: “We have always been committed to releasing this film, and our plans have not changed.”
“Musk” seeks to make sense of the world’s richest man and the outsized influence he wields over the world, diving deep into his time as a MAGA supporter, the controversies surrounding his Occupy Mars mission and Tesla’s self-driving cars and his contentious relationships with several of the mothers of his 14 children.
The documentary opened theatrically Friday from Bleecker Street and generated $68,900 at four locations (a per-screen average of $17,225).
Gn entert
