El Chupacabra Michael Moore: The Fahrenheit 9/11 filmmaker is now an urban legend. According a U.S.-based pharmaceutical company executive, various Michael Moore “sightings” have been reported at their business centers across the country.- Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 filmmaker Michael Moore, currently working on an exposé of the American pharmaceutical industry, has become Big Pharma’s early 21st-century boogeyman.
El Chupacabra Michael Moore vs. Big Pharma: How the Fahrenheit 9/11 filmmaker has become an ‘urban legend’
The 21st century keeps getting weirder and weirder: How has Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine, 2002) evolved into the 2000s’ El Chupacabra?
However bizarre, the answer is actually not at all complicated.
The curious case of Michael Moore is a direct result of U.S.-based pharmaceutical industry (a.k.a. Big Pharma) leaders being terrified that in his upcoming documentary, Sicko, Moore will depict them and their products in the same way that he depicted U.S. President George W. Bush and his products in this year’s epoch-making blockbuster Fahrenheit 9/11.
Employees of some pharmaceutical corporations have been warned that El Chupacabra from Flint, Michigan, may come and get them any day now.
The Los Angeles Times quotes Rachel Bloom, executive director of corporate communications at AstraZeneca, based in Wilmington, Delaware, as saying, “We have six business centers nationwide, all of which report ‘sightings.’ Michael Moore is becoming an urban legend.”
Sicko box office
Update: Made for a reported $9 million, Michael Moore’s Sicko premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2007.
It opened the following month in the United States, grossing $24.5 million at the domestic box office. For comparison’s sake, Fahrenheit 9/11 collected $119.2 million while Bowling for Columbine took in $21.6 million.
“El Chupacabra” endnotes
Michael Moore Sicko image: Lionsgate Pictures | The Weinstein Company.
“El Chupacabra: How Michael Moore Became an ‘Urban Legend’” last updated in September 2021.