Universal Pictures Appears to Be Getting Cold Feet on Elon Musk Movie

When it screened at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month, Musk got the kind of reception every international distributor dreams about. Attendees applauded enthusiastically for five minutes and saluted director Alex Gibney , even shouting "thank you" inside the festival’s Sala Grande for his hard-hitting investigation into the world's richest man. But despite that instant and reassuring focus group, Universal Pictures , which controls worldwide rights to the film outside of North America, now appears to be having second thoughts on a documentary it paid a significant sum to acquire. The company has not dated the movie, has not communicated with the filmmaking team about its plans, and generally appears to be rethinking the release of a project that it once showed high enthusiasm for but is now politically sensitive for parts of the Trump administration.