BBC NEWS: Bush film 'tops $8m on first day'

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Bush film 'tops $8m on first day': "Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, which compiles box office statistics, compared the furore over Fahrenheit 9/11 to Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, which was at the centre of a storm after claims it was anti-Semitic.
'It's like how The Passion of the Christ redefined what a certain genre of movie could do at the box office, Fahrenheit 9/11 is doing the same thing,' he said.
'This blows away any conceivable box office record for a documentary.'
The current US box office record for a documentary is held by another Moore film - Bowling for Columbine, which took $21.6m (�11.9m) during its run in 2002. It took a further $35m (�19.2m) outside the US.
Its nearest competitor, comedy White Chicks, is said to be $1.5m (�823,000) behind Fahrenheit 9/11 - but is showing at three times as many cinemas. "