‘Fahrenheit’ climbs toward ‘Everest’

Michael Moore’s anti-Bush documentary, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” continued to do solid business in the No. 2 spot over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, bringing in an estimated $21 million Friday through Monday as Lions Gate Films almost doubled the number of theaters where the movie is playing, to 1,725 from 868.

With a per-theater average of $12,174 in its second weekend and an estimated cumulative gross of $60.1 million, it has become the No. 3 documentary of any kind and is gaining on the No. 2 spot currently held by the Imax-format “Everest.” That film came out in 1998 and has taken in $87.2 million in the years since, according to figures supplied by its distributor, MacGillivray Freeman Films.

The No. 1 documentary, according to Imax Corp., remains “The Dream Is Alive,” which has taken in $125.5 million domestically since its release in 1985. “Fahrenheit 9/11” has surpassed the No. 1 concert documentary, “Eddie Murphy: Raw,” which grossed $50.5 million, figures supplied by box-office tracking firm Nielsen EDI indicate.

Tom Ortenberg, president of Lions Gate Releasing, said audiences for “Fahrenheit 9/11” remained fairly evenly split between men and women, but he said comprehensive data on the film’s demographics and its geographical performance by state or region were not available Monday.