Did anyone else wonder why Michael Moore's excellent film, "SiCKO", played in so few movie theaters?
I mean, it seemed to me like it wasn't playing in nearly as many theaters as did "Fahrenheit 9/11", for example.
Sure, I figured that somehow the health insurance industry had gotten to the film distributor - but I don't remember seeing any stories which might support that theory... until now, that is (much more of that sicko story below).
Now before all of you skip below, I imagine some of you are thinking "So what else is new?" And I suppose my honest answer is, "Probably not much," because I've seen this sort of thing happen to good films before. And because of my personal interests, I've seen this sort of suppression mainly of Irish films and/or films dealing with Ireland's relationship with England.
For example, in 2006 "The Wind that Shakes the Barley" was unanimously selected as the best picture at the Cannes Film Festival. But certain influential British commentators said that segments involving the use of torture in that film might cause some to reflect unfavorably on the Bush administration's use of torture IN Iraq. So it didn't get released in a single US theater in 2006. Some other good films that saw little or no US distribution include the award winning "Some Mother's Son", which dealt with two mother's reactions to the IRA hunger strikes in 1980 and 1981, and the hilarious "An Everlasting Piece", which Steven Spielberg dropped like a rock once he learned that Queen Elizabeth was not pleased with the film. Coincidentally, Queen Elizabeth knighted the very talented and admirable Mr. Spielberg quite shortly thereafter....
I'll bet some of you can name other great foreign films that have been similarly suppressed in the USA, and you are certainly more than welcome to do so. I won't consider that to be any sort of attempted hijack, but rather an effort to broaden our background knowledge, so as to better understand what Lions Gate may have done vis-a-vis "SiCKO".
I say "may have" only because I have no familiarity with either the author of the story that follows, or any of the blogs carrying this story which I found through a google blog search. Hence, it is possible that this entire story is fiction. In support of that possibility, I have to say that I could not find any reference to it at Michael Moore's website; but then I suppose he may not wish to cast any bad publicity towards the distributor of his film.
Anyway, in a nutshell, it's possible that a very wealthy pharmaceutical investor purchased a controlling interest in Lions Gate just in time to suppress the distribution of "SiCKO". And while pharmaceutical companies and health insurance companies may not be one and the same, they do have innumerable linkages. I'm posting this here because I hope that we might collectively be capable of shedding some light on this matter - and if we have sufficient cause to believe it to be true, I think we should try to give it more publicity.
So, here's the link to the story, and below is an excerpt:
Originally, Lion’s Gate had planned a wide release of SICKO in over 1,600 theaters nationwide June 29, 2007 but one week prior to the release the number was reduced to a mere 400. This decision was made the same week Dr. Rachesky purchased Lions Gate stock. Could this be pure coincidence?
Did Dr Rachesky purchase the stock for controlling interests in Lions Gate? Controlling Interest is when the parent company owns a majority of the common stock that allows the shareholder major influence on the company. Normally for one to obtain controlling interests in a company one would purchase at least 51% of all shares however, in some cases a single entity can essentially maintain control with only 33.4% of the outstanding shares. Ironically, this is the exact percentage of shares purchased by Dr. Rachesky.