Bleecker Street CEO on Why the Social Media Suppression of ‘Musk’ Is About Much More Than Film

The nearly 4-hour documentary about Elon Musk struggled at the box office but has had a surge of interest in PVOD pre-sales.

Elon Musk has given $276 million to Republican groups and his super PAC since this July ahead of the midterm elections, the New York Times recently reported. But “Musk,” Alex Gibney‘s documentary about the world’s first trillionaire, is not a political film. Or at least not for the majority of its nearly 4-hour runtime. It’s a film about this singular man’s influence on the world and covers far more ground than his involvement with Trump administration or the midterms.

But the documentary has been treated as political by every social media platform the film has tried to advertise on. Meta and YouTube each pulled distributor Bleecker Street‘s paid trailer for the film before later restoring it, saying its removal was in error. TikTok on the weekend “Musk” expanded to 500 theaters “permanently” suspended the film’s account because it said it repeatedly violated its policies of paying to boost what it viewed as political content, and it only reinstated the account after two days, an eternity if you’re chasing weekend box office. X, which is owned by Musk, predictably didn’t play ball at all.

Gibney has not been shy highlighting the “accidental” bans that ads for his film have had to endure. His distributor Bleecker Street behind the scenes has been fighting these battles and has been quietly fuming. The film’s box office, just $672K in three weeks, has been extremely disappointing. In response, Bleecker is moving up the PVOD release date of “Musk” to November 6 after slating it for late in November.

And the response has been enormous. Pre-orders for the film, priced at $20, have been outpacing “The Odyssey” on Apple, and it’s among Apple’s top purchased titles even though it doesn’t come out for another week.

“I think it’ll be the most pre-ordered movie in my entire career of doing this,” Kent Sanderson, Bleecker Street CEO, told IndieWire. “People are seeking out the movie. And look, it just may end up being that the experience of a three-hour and-42-minute documentary is something that people wanted to do more at home, but it was our duty to try to maximize the theatrical release in advance of that.”

Sanderson spoke about the constant frustration “Musk” faced in every phase of its advertising cycle, adding that he’s never experienced something to do this degree in his career before (he jokes that he is not expecting Bleecker’s other fall release, Mike Leigh’s “Tender Loving Care,” to experience the same “shadow ban” this film has). Sanderson said not only was it clear that the constant removal of their trailers and teasers was unfair given the film’s broader content, he found that the review and approval process in communication with each of the tech platforms was not as transparent as they would’ve normally expected it to be.

“It just happened over and over again throughout the campaign of assets going up and then being taken down and then going up and then being taken down,” Sanderson said. “The absolute brick wall we hit with TikTok was on the opening Friday of the wide release, and it lasted throughout the weekend.”

Sanderson explained his team would try and amend the situation by editing the trailer to remove footage of Elon at Trump rallies, and the new trailer would still be flagged. The back and forth, he said, was maddening and “constant,” with a whole lot of “this was taken down in error” before the next piece of content would have the same fate. They had better luck with still images or posters rather than anything that was a video, but that’s hardly the way to sell a movie.

“I’m not a conspiracy theorist by nature, but I will say that it was frustrating,” Sanderson said. “It was a frustrating and confusing process for everybody.”

He can’t put a dollar amount on how much the lack of advertising hurt the movie at the box office except to say that it undoubtedly did, but he’s relieved that the movie at least still has some real awareness that has led to the strong pre-sale figures. He’s also not naive to the fact that “Musk” is a tough film for exhibitors to keep on their screens week after week. The movie expanded in a weekend when new movies like “Clayface” and “Wicker” opened and another lengthy documentary, “You Can See Everything,” tripled its screen count, all of which easily could’ve dinged the box office. To keep a four-hour film like “Musk” could mean sacrificing not one but two other titles, and that’s a big ask.

But Sanderson stressed that exhibitors themselves were never hesitant to play the movie, and it wasn’t a fight to get screens for any political reasons. Despite the PVOD release, “Musk” will still play in a few select theaters through this weekend and beyond. He also reassures that he remains in active discussions with HBO and HBO Max about making it available for streaming at a later date, something that people began to doubt after Musk invested $1 billion in the David Ellison-owned Skydance, which now owns HBO.

“I’ve gotten no hesitation from them whatsoever,” he said. “If something’s happening on a higher level, I’m not aware of it.”

Sanderson did want to clarify that though there were some people who wanted to see the film released ahead of the midterm elections next week, this is quite literally the soonest they can turn around the digital release. The PVOD rental will also be available with a slightly extended cut of “Musk” that needed to be delivered, and he also found that the PVOD release window in late November is particularly crowded.

Sanderson confirmed the veracity of a legal letter that Musk’s lawyer sent to Gibney and the film team but said Musk has not contacted Bleecker Street directly. But Sanderson ultimately feels that the suppression of “Musk” is bigger than the impact on this one film or on his individual film company. In the same weekend that “Musk” went wide, the No Kings Rally also had its Instagram account suspended for similar political reasons, and his team has even been talking with that organization about how they’re navigating that same experience.

“It is beyond just the film business. It is about free speech and being able to amplify you’re your message,” Sanderson said. “I understand that there’s a fine line, and you don’t want dangerous content being put out in the world, but this is by definition not dangerous content, and I’m not sure that the social media companies should be the ones to figure out that line.”

“Musk” is in theaters now and is available on PVOD on November 6.