I'd love to blame Elon Musk for the 'Musk' documentary flop — the runtime makes it hard

The Writers Guild of America issued a joint statement on October 24 declaring that MUSK, Alex Gibney and Michael J. Palmer's documentary, "has been subject to an overt censorship campaign by tech platforms." The particulars are real: per the statement, every major social platform initially prohibited or restricted ads for the film, and TikTok told distributor Bleecker Street that advertising was "permanently banned" — a ban lifted only after opening weekend.

The guild's larger argument connects TikTok's US control under Larry Ellison to his son David's new Paramount–Warner Bros. combination, which happens to hold the film's streaming rights, and warns that "a small handful of billionaires now own virtually every major media company, news outlet and social media platform." On the facts of ownership, no argument from me.

The numbers the statement doesn't mention

Here's what the censorship frame has to explain away. When MUSK expanded to 472 theaters in mid-October, it grossed $290,000 — a $614 per-screen average, per World of Reel. Within about two weeks of release, Bleecker Street had pulled it from nearly every screen.

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The movie also runs close to four hours. The r/boxoffice thread under the WGA story treated that as the whole autopsy:

"This is probably true, but it's also 4 hours long… that's insane. Like I go to the movies at least once a week. I'm waiting for it to be released so I can watch it at home as a 4 part series lol cause I know I ain't gonna spend 4 straight hours watching it."

— a commenter on r/boxoffice

That's a person who goes to the movies weekly, agrees the suppression probably happened, and still wasn't buying a ticket. The same month gave us the control group: Nathan Fielder's three-hour You Can See Everything opened to $15 million on 800-plus screens for A24, driven by audiences under 35. Long and challenging wasn't the barrier — long, challenging, and about a man everyone already has an opinion on was.

TikTok's ad ban was lifted after opening weekend. The per-screen average after that was $614.

Why the framing matters

The commenters did the sharper math on the theatrical run itself:

"When it was in 476 theaters, it only made $600/theater over its three-day OW. That's maybe enough for the theater to cover the wages of the teenager who turns on the projector."

— a commenter on r/boxoffice

The ad restrictions are documented, the ownership concentration is real, and the WGA's antitrust alarm deserves a better test case than this. A four-hour film whose natural audience splits into fans who won't watch a takedown and critics who won't sit through four hours of the man was going to struggle with or without TikTok. Hanging the flop on censorship hands every skeptic an easy rebuttal — and the next documentary that actually gets buried will inherit their shrug.

Previously we wrote: Slow Horses made Jack Lowden TV's most lovable failed spy. That's why he'd be a better Bond