E! Online

By Joal Ryan

Michael Moore has an October surprise planned for President Bush.


The gadfly filmmaker's Bush-bashing documentary hit, Fahrenheit 9/11, will bow
on DVD and video on Oct. 5, was announced Tuesday.


The home-video release will come three and a half months after the movie
debuted in theaters--and one month before voters go to the polls and decide if
President Bush is worthy of a four-year extended lease on the White House.


Scott Hettrick, editor-in-chief of the monthly trade magazine DVD Exclusive, is
neither surprised at the speed at which Fahrenheit is coming to video, nor the
timing of the release.


"Michael Moore has been saying this from day one," Hettrick says.


"This" is Moore's instance that his film, a look at post-9/11 politics, war and
legislative acts in the name of patriotism, be in consumers' hands by September
or October.


While filmmakers and studios are usually concerned with snagging Christmas
sales and Oscar buzz with end-of-the-year releases, Moore is focused on the
Nov. 2 general election.


"Businesswise, it makes much more sense to get [Fahrenheit] out before the
election," says Peter M. Bracke, editor-in-chief of DVDfile.com. "[After] is
the movie still going to be relevant?"


Hettrick doesn't doubt the movie is going to be "very big."


"It'll be the biggest documentary ever on video," Hettrick says.


Simple math, if not logic, dictates that conclusion. Already, Fahrenheit 9/11
is the biggest documentary hit ever at the box office, grossing $115.5 million
through Sunday.


Released June 23, the film also made history as the first doc to ever debut
atop the weekend box office, with a three-day opening gross of $23.9 million.


The DVD version of Fahrenheit, to be released by Columbia TriStar Home
Entertainment for about $30, will be packed with the requisite extras, although
the title likely will be the only major one this fall to feature National
Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice's testimony before the 9/11 commission.


With four months being the standard not-so lag time between theatrical release
and DVD debut, Hettrick says he expects Fahrenheit to be competing for shelf
space with the likes of The Village, The Manchurian Candidate and Catwoman,
among other late-summer movies bound for fall video releases.


The group that books movies for U.S. military bases told Reuters last week that
it, for one, planned to stock the Fahrenheit DVD.


So far, though, the group hasn't screened the Fahrenheit print for soldiers. It
said its decision was based on reports the DVD would be coming out so quickly.