By M&C News Jul 10, 2006, 9:37 GMT
If you are fortunate enough to be on Michael Moore’s email list of supporters, you would have received late last week, news that his ‘Sicko’ is on track for a 2007 release by the Weinstein Company, a bit later than the Q4 2006 release earlier anticipated.
"We've spent the better part of the year shooting our next movie, 'Sicko.' As we've done with our other films, we don't discuss them while we are making them," Moore wrote. "If people ask, we tell them 'Sicko' is 'a comedy about the 45 million people with no health care in the richest country on Earth."
Moore received over 19,000 responses to his call this past February for letters describing personal experiences with the health care system.
He said his latest doc is simple. "I don't think the country needs a movie that tells you that HMOs and the pharmaceutical companies suck. Everybody knows that. I'd like to show you some things you don't know. So stay tuned for where this movie has led me. I think you might enjoy it."
His 2004 award winning ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ set box office records for a documentary earning $119 million in the U.S.
According to reports, an early draft of the business plan for the Weinstein Co. predicted a $40 million gross -- almost twice the domestic take for Moore's "Bowling for Columbine," which grossed $21 million in 2002.
Moore has remained mostly mum on the ‘Sicko’ project, fearing retribution from pharmaceutical companies who already have sent around memos to employees warning them not to cooperate with the film maker.
Even now, two years after attention generated by Fahrenheit, Moore is the brunt of conservative critics in the country, a position it seems he somewhat enjoys.
Moore wrote in his email, "I realize that my silence doesn't stop the opposition with their weird obsession for me! I have to say I did enjoy Tom DeLay blaming me and Ms. Streisand for why he had to resign from Congress!"
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