Where to Invade Next, Michael Moore’s documentary in which he travels the globe in search of inspirational legislation which might be adopted by the US, is his worst-performing film ever.
His first movie for six years, it opened across 308 cinemas in the US last weekend taking $897,034 (£620,231) for a location average of $2,912. That’s considerably less than the $4,452 taken by The Big One in 1998, as well as the $3,810 per screen taken by his fiction film, Canadian Bacon, in 1995.
And it’s substantially less than the $57,991 taken in each cinema by Capitalism: A Love Story in 2009.
When the film first premiered in Toronto, an Oscar nomination seemed a sure thing, and Tiff awaited the results of a fierce bidding war, with rumours suggesting Moore had turned down an offer from Netflix as he was keen on as wide a theatrical run as possible.
The film was eventually sold to new company Drafthouse Films, but its release date was then moved from before Christmas to before Valentine’s Day. Moore’s planned 50-date promotional tour was cancelled after the director contracted pneumonia. Talk show appearances were also scrapped.
Where to Invade Next also screens at the Berlin film festival, before limited runs in Germany, Luxembourg, Greece, Sweden and the Netherlands later in the spring. A UK release has not yet been confirmed.
The country was notable for its absence on Moore’s tour of Europe in the film. “I wanted to pick the flowers and not the weeds,” he told the Guardian last year.
“I wanted to go to places that we could learn from, and I don’t think we have much to learn from the UK right now. I’m sorry to say that.”
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