Anti-Bush film helps Sicko
2004-07-27 14:09
Los Angeles - The success of Fahrenheit 9/11 is making Michael Moore's life a bit easier on his next film.
With Fahrenheit 9/11 becoming the first documentary to cross the $100m mark at the domestic box office, director Moore expects a smooth path on raising money to make Sicko, his critique of private US health-maintenance organisations, known as HMOs.
Moore would not provide details but said financing of his next movie was in the works, thanks to Fahrenheit 9/11, which cost just $6m to make.
"Clearly, if you make a movie that has this ratio of how much it costs to its gross, you're going to find an easy time making your next film," Moore said.
The idea for Sicko stems from a segment Moore did on his The Awful Truth TV show, in which he staged a mock funeral at an HMO, for a patient denied an organ transplant he needed to survive. The company relented and paid for the transplant.
Moore, an Academy Award winner for Bowling for Columbine, said he would have plowed ahead with Sicko even if Fahrenheit 9/11 had not given him new commercial clout to raise money.
"I've never let that get in the way, anyway," Moore said. "Even if this movie hadn't done as well, that movie was going to get made, because I think the American people are clamouring to see the HMOs punished."
- AP