Bleecker Street Moves Gibney’s Musk Doc to Oct. 9 After TIFF Premiere

Bleecker Street moved Alex Gibney’s nearly four-hour documentary Musk up a week to an October 9, 2026 theatrical opening in New York and Los Angeles after Venice heat and a Toronto North American premiere, Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter reported.

Deadline said the film, which runs about 3 hours 45 minutes with a 10-minute intermission, was originally set for October 16 and will expand nationwide after the earlier NY/LA bow. The shift follows Musk’s lengthy public attacks on Gibney after Venice and a legal letter from attorney Alex Spiro putting filmmakers “on notice” over contested claims, including material involving Ashley St. Clair. Bleecker Street is proceeding anyway.

THR covered the September 14 TIFF premiere at Scotiabank Theatre, where Wired’s Katie Drummond called the film “overwhelming” in a complimentary sense and Gibney described Musk as a “shadow president,” urging audiences to “stand up and resist” billionaire overreach. The outlet said Bleecker Street advanced the date after A24 scheduled Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s You Can See Everything for October 16, setting up a crowded prestige-doc weekend that may later include an Elizabeth Holmes feature.

Distribution plans cited by THR include a multi-month pay VOD window before an HBO airdate targeted for early 2027, plus an awards push for documentary—and possibly original song via a David Byrne end-credit number. Musk has dismissed the project on X as a boring “hit piece” without confirming he has seen it; Gibney told TIFF he got “nothing back” after outreach to Musk’s legal team following threats.

With theatres now booked for October 9, the studio question is no longer whether the grenade drops—only how wide the blast radius runs from TIFF Q&As to Oscar shortlists.