Michael Moore says ‘Fahrenheit 9/11′ follow-up is not a sequel

With his follow-up to “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Michael Moore wants to examine America as an empire, study its standing since the Sept. 11 attacks and present revelations to surprise audiences as much as the first film did.

But he doesn’t want to make a sequel.

“To just say it’s a sequel is so wrong,” Moore told The Associated Press yesterday at the Cannes Film Festival, where he met with potential international distributors for the film, due out in 2009.

The documentary announced this week at Cannes will be a broader chronicle than “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which took President Bush to task over the terrorist attacks and the Iraq war.

“It would be easier and safer to make a sequel, if that’s all it was, but this isn’t about Bush. We all know this. Regardless of who the president is come November, we have a big mess, a big, big mess to be cleaned up, and I don’t know whether it can be cleaned up,” Moore said. “The toxicity of the spill may be so great that there’s nothing we can do about it. If that’s the case, where are we now as America and as Americans?”

“Fahrenheit 9/11″ won the top prize at Cannes in 2004 and went on to top $100 million at the domestic box office, the only documentary to hit that mark.

Moore plans to keep details of the film to himself, saying he regretted talking too early about his health-care documentary “Sicko.” Health insurers were able to mobilize against him, which “made it impossible for me to get in anywhere” for interviews, he said.

The new film, which doesn’t yet have a title, is being financed by Overture Films, which is handling the U.S. release, and Paramount Vantage, which is overseeing international distribution. Read the rest of this entry