US filmmaker Alex Gibney says Musk, his documentary about businessman and investor Elon Musk, is “likely to be seen next year”.
The film is in production through Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions, with Closer Media, AC Independent and Double Agent. Gibney told Screen he “keeps reaching out” to the tech billionaire to be involved in the film, but without success so far.
“It’s likely to be seen next year; I’m working on it now,” said Gibney, speaking to Screen at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen where he gave a talk on Tuesday, March 19. “We keep reaching out [to Musk], but I haven’t had any direct engagement with him since the first round of tweeting.”
After the project was announced in February last year, Musk said on X (formerly Twitter), the social media platform he owns, that “it’s a hit piece”; to which Gibney responded “How would you know?”, referencing Musk’s lack of involvement.
HBO Documentary Films has North American television and streaming rights on Musk; with Universal Pictures Content Group acquiring international distribution rights from Black Bear in October.
Other upcoming films from Gibney include two documentaries directed by Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck, which Gibney will produce through Jigsaw. Orwell, about writer George Orwell, “will be finished this year” said Gibney, although may not be released until 2025.
“Raoul is going to have a really interesting take,”, said Gibney. “It’s in the present moment – anything but a traditional biopic of Orwell. Raoul tends to immerse himself completely in a subject; dives in deep then comes out the other side with a sense of how he wants to construct a narrative.”
The pair are also collaborating on The Hands That Held The Knives (working title), a feature documentary about the 2021 assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moise.
Alongside his Oscar-nominated Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room and Oscar-winning Taxi To The Dark Side, Gibney has made several documentaries about high-profile figures, including 2013’s The Armstrong Lie about Lance Armstrong, 2015’s Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, and In Restless Dreams: The Music Of Paul Simon, which debuted at Toronto last year and played at CPH:DOX this week.
David Chase film
In his CPH:DOX talk, Gibney also revealed he is “just finishing up” another portrait film, about David Chase, creator of The Sopranos. “That’s an unexpected labour of love,” said Gibney. “Why do you think he decided to make The Sopranos? Mommy issues. He wanted to make a movie about his mother [The Sopranos was originally pitched as a feature film], and how crazy she was and how difficult it was growing up with him.
“The first couple of seasons of The Sopranos are about a mother who’s trying to kill her son. He found an interesting way of working it out.”
Private detectives
With only 10 full-time employees, New York-based Jigsaw manages this busy project load by hiring external researchers “by the project”, Gibney said.
“I don’t want the researcher to be thinking about another movie while they’re doing [the research]; I want them only to be thinking about this movie,” said the filmmaker. “Over time, we found a group of rotating researchers, but also sometimes producers or associate producers.
“We try to school them on the idea that they have to become private detectives. They’ve got a case and client, and their job is to solve the mystery – where’s the missing footage?”
The topic of how documentaries are treated on major streaming platforms came up in Gibney’s discussion; he later told Screen he believes streamers weren’t always as safe in their non-fiction programming as they are now.
“They may change if it can be proven that viewers are going elsewhere,” said Gibney. “Then they may change the way they commission, or the world around will change them.
“There was a race by all streamers to be the one streamer to rule them all and in the darkness bind them. They ran out of gas trying to become that one streamer. It is distressing to me because I see a trend of what TV networks used to call LOP – least offensive programming. At the moment, the streamers seem to be more interested in the character of the channels, than the content of the creators.”
Returning to his vast slate, Gibney said he is involved in “a number of highly-charged projects that are very controversial” about US politics, that he thinks “will commence a lot of debate.”
“I think they’ll be very popular, a lot of people will want to see them,” said Gibney. “The question is whether the streamers will be prepared to release things that may offend some people.” Further details on these projects “will come out soon,” said the filmmaker.
CPH:DOX runs until Sunday, March 24.
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