Michael Moore didn’t get a chance to run his mouth at the Oscars on Sunday, since Taxi to the Dark Side won for Best Documentary instead of Sicko, but the director still has plenty to say. At the International Documentary Association gathering last Wednesday, before the Oscars, he stood up with a polemic not about some aspect of American culture, but his own industry.
"We will start a non-fiction movement of fans and viewers across the country, especially between the two coasts. I believe in my heart that we all can make this happen, I ask you to please join with me in making it happen." What he’s talking about is a scheme called Doc Night in America, in which multiplexes across the country dedicate one screen one night per week to showing a documentary. He cites statistics about the poor attendance at the movies on Mondays, and how theatres with 15 screens will sometimes be showing the latest blockbuster on half of them. "Harry Potter doesn't need to be on seven screens. That seventh screen, it just isn't full, it never is and it's crowding out some very good movies."
Though documentaries exploded in the box office a few years ago, with the success of Moore’s own Fahrenheit 9/11, March of the Penguins and Super Size Me, the last few years have been rough. This year’s five Best Documentary Feature nominees earned $26 million total—that’s less than There Will Be Blood made, and less than half of the box office for March of the Penguins. It probably has something to do with the fact that half the documentaries were about the Iraq War, which no one wants to see a movie about period. But still, documentaries are clearly having a tough time out there.
Moore’s idea is interesting, especially this time of year when so few people are going to the movies that Be Kind Rewind can make $4 million and still crack the top 10. The biggest thing stopping major theater exhibitors from showing documentaries or other smaller movies is risk; if they book a screen with a movie only a handful of artsy-fartsy folks want to see, they lose a ton of money. But booking those films on off-nights, when the people who are really committed will come out and see it… well, it’s so crazy it just might work. We’ll see if Moore can bring his distinct brand of bravado to the distribution scene, and actually make it possible for anyone but those fabled New York intellectuals to see something like Taxi to the Dark Side.
