Universal Sets International Rollout Of Alex Gibney Documentary ‘Musk’

Universal International has finally set offshore release dates for Alex Gibney’s controversial four-hour documentary Musk with the UK on Jan. 15, Germany on Jan. 21, Spain on Feb. 5, France on Feb. 17 February and Australia on Feb. 25.

More release dates abroad will be announced. The pic has already released stateside via Bleecker Street, opening on Oct. 9 and through Wednesday counted $730K. Some media of late was trying to stir up trouble that theaters were pulling Musk due to pressure from Elon Musk, and well, that’s just not true. The pic debuted in its first weekend at 4 theaters, then platformed to 472 in its second weekend, and dropped to 63 in its third. Hello, it’s a four-hour documentary. If the movie isn’t doing business in auditoriums, it gets pulled, not to mention Bleecker Street titles typically have a limited wide run in theaters for less than a month. Musk is ultimately bound for HBO since it’s an HBO documentary where it will be able to be seen by awards voters.

Deadline told you first that Uni was taking foreign. News of the documentary ticked off Elon Musk from the onset, prior to Gibney shooting it with the Tesla and SpaceX boss calling the filmmaker “a douche” on X. At one point in time soon after Uni acquired foreign on the documentary, there was buzz that they were getting cold feet. A Uni spokesperson at the time told us that they had no plans to ditch the movie.

The pic world premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival.

Musk will continue its festival tour with upcoming stops at Lisbon Film Festival, IDFA (The International Documentary Film Festival), the world’s largest documentary festival in Amsterdam and Stockholm Film Festival later this month.