Universal will still release its nearly four-hour Elon Musk documentary, Alex Gibney’s “Musk,” internationally, despite reports that it was getting cold feet, TheWrap has learned.
“We remain committed to releasing the film and those plans have not changed. The studio is currently working through our international release strategy,” an individual with knowledge told TheWrap.
The studio currently holds the rights to theatrical distribution overseas.
The news came after a report from Hollywood Reporter said that “Universal was backing away from releasing the feature in markets outside of North America.”
The film received widespread acclaim upon its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. With a 10-minute intermission included, “Musk” explores the rise of the world’s richest man from the son of an emerald mine investor to a Silicon Valley giant and, later, the owner of Twitter/X and Donald Trump’s onetime confidante as he shut down government agencies and fired thousands of federal employees through the upstart government agency DOGE.
At the center of the documentary, which Musk did not participate in, are interviews with his former romantic partners, most notably ex-wife Justine Musk and former conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair, the latter of whom called Musk a “nuke.”
Apparently Gibney, the Academy Award-winning director of “The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley,” “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief” and “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” (among many others), began the documentary as a fairly straightforward portrait of Musk when he was just a Silicon Valley wonk. But as he continued to chronicle Musk’s life and activities, a frightening new dimension took shape, as he harnessed his technological and financial weight for unsavory ends and embedded himself within the Trump administration.
The official logline reads, “An incisive look behind the legend of Elon Musk, the world’s most heralded ‘investor-entrepreneur’ who has enormous influence on the world in which we all live.”
The 235-minute documentary will be released theatrically by Bleecker Street on Oct. 16. An even longer version will be released by HBO sometime in 2027.
