Political activism around the release of "The Day After Tomorrow" gets a big boost today: the New York Times reports that Fox—owned by avid Bush supporter Rupert Murdoch—has been caught unprepared by groups using the movie to raise awareness and highlight Bush administration inaction on climate change.
Fox uninvited 2 celebrity enviros, Robert Kennedy Jr. and Laurie David, to a Manhattan premeire screening for Worldchanging's favorite upcoming climate-change disaster flick.
Then Fox re-invited them, apparently blindsided when these media-saavy, holy-fired environmentalists told the press about it.
In a telephone news conference on Tuesday former Vice President Al Gore compared the exaggeration of the film's premise to the approach of the Bush administration to global warming.
"There are two sets of fiction to deal with," Mr. Gore said. "One is the movie, the other is the Bush administration's presentation of global warming." He accused the White House of "trying to convince people there's no real problem, no degree of certainty from scientists about the issue." The news conference was organized by moveon.org, an Internet-based liberal advocacy group.
A Fox spokes man claims the studio is pleased by all the attention. "Clearly the movie is entertainment, but all of this activity creates additional interest, making it more topical," Jeffrey Godsick, the spokesman, said. "It's been wonderful." Godsick didn't know if Murdoch had yet seen the film.
