Email Push Bowls Hollywood Over

Bowling for Columbine, the controversial documentary by the maverick director Michael Moore about American gun culture, opened in cinemas in the US at the weekend to an enthusiastic audience response.

Its success may be in no small way due to thousands of emails sent by the director himself urging people to attend as a way of demonstrating their opposition to President Bush and his plans for war in Iraq.

The film has already provoked an angry response from the gun lobby and threats of retribution to the distributors, United Artists.

"Dear friends, fans, and fellow evildoers," said the email dispatched last week by Moore to his vast database of supporters last week.

"Bowling for Columbine is, I promise, the last thing the Bushies want projected on the movie screens across America this week."

"I truly believe this film has the potential to rock the nation and get people energised to do something."

Moore suggests that the film is timely because of the plans for war - and the activities of the Washington area sniper who has killed nine people.

"I believe this movie can create a lot of havoc - but I will need ALL of you to help me do this. Are you game?" he asks.

He goes on to explain that if the film does well in its first week, it can be shown across the US. If it fails, it disappears.

Earlier this year, Moore tried the same tactic with his book, Stupid White Men, which includes a savage attack on President Bush.

Moore's publishers had been wary of the book in the post-September 11 atmosphere, and were considering pulping it. But after Moore's email, it topped the Amazon charts, and it has been on the New York Times bestseller list for 31 weeks.

Now Bowling for Columbine has banked around $250,000 at eight screens in its first weekend - a solid showing for an independent movie. The big budget Swept Away, starring Madonna, earned only $375,000 from 196 screens.

The mobilisation of an audience by email has been used by conservative Christian groups for the recently successful genre of apocalypytic Christian fundamentalist movies.

If the tactic succeeds with Bowling for Columbine, Moore says he hopes to use the money to make a film about September 11 and "how Bush is using that tragic day as a cover for his rightwing agenda."