{"id":651807,"date":"2026-10-11T20:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T20:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/651807\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T20:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T20:52:08","slug":"musk-director-says-universal-wavered-in-planning-overseas-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/651807\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Musk’ Director Says Universal Wavered in Planning Overseas Release"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAlex Gibney<\/a>, director of the 3-hour-and-45-minute Elon Musk<\/a>-centered documentary \u201cMusk<\/a>,\u201d discussed the lengths he went to to interview the tech billionaire for the film and why he believes Universal Pictures hesitated to plan an international release in a new interview with The New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough Musk does not appear in the film (though Gibney did create an avatar of him to simulate interviews in the doc), the director said it wasn\u2019t for lack of trying, explaining that he and producer Jessie Deeter \u201creached out.\u201d \u201cDeeter knew him from two previous films. She had his cellphone number. She had an email address,\u201d said Gibney. \u201cShe wrote sometimes folksy, sometimes detailed notes about how much we wanted his perspective. His response was writing \u2018Gibney is a douche\u2019 on Twitter<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAhead of the film\u2019s release, Musk called it a \u201chit piece\u201d<\/a> and said \u201cdogshit is worth more respect.\u201d He added that Gibney \u201chas ZERO integrity\u201d and is a \u201chorrible human.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGibney also noted that he \u201capproached a lot of friends of his and business colleagues, and a lot of them said, \u2018I can\u2019t talk to you because Elon won\u2019t give you permission.\u2019\u201d He cited Ashley St. Clair<\/a>, Musk\u2019s former girlfriend and the mother of his 14th child, and Justine Musk, his first wife, as major gets for the documentary.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd while it was reported<\/a> last month that \u201cMusk\u201d would indeed get an international release despite legal threats from the SpaceX founder, Gibney confirmed with a \u201cYes\u201d that the studio wavered on those release plans when the interviewer asked if that was the case. When questioned about what happened, Gibney responded: \u201cWere they concerned that in this political environment, a film about the world\u2019s richest man was problematic? Maybe, but you have to ask them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe paper noted that Universal declined to comment beyond what the company said in a previous statement: \u201cWe\u2019ve always been committed to releasing this film, and our plans haven\u2019t changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMusk\u201d <\/a>seeks to make sense of the world\u2019s richest man and the outsized influence he has on the world, diving deep into his shift to MAGA supporter, controversies surrounding his Occupy Mars mission and Tesla\u2019s self-driving cars and his contentious relationships with several of the mothers of his 14 children.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe documentary opened in theaters<\/a> on Friday from Bleecker Street and generated $68,900 from four locations (an average of $17,225 per screen)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Gibney, director of the 3-hour-and-45-minute Elon Musk-centered documentary \u201cMusk,\u201d discussed the lengths he went to to interview…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[229633,321,605,93,61,60,24545],"class_list":["post-651807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-alex-gibney","tag-celebrities","tag-elon-musk","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-musk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}