Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney‘s long-awaited Elon Musk documentary has locked down a deal for a run in U.S. cinemas ahead of its streaming launch on HBO Max.  

HBO Documentary Films and Universal Pictures have teamed up with indie distributor Bleecker Street to bring the film — which is titled, simply, Musk — to theaters. The partners describe the film as “an incisive look behind the legend of Elon Musk, the world’s most heralded ‘inventor-entrepreneur’ who has enormous influence on the world in which we all live.” 

The deal was unveiled on Tuesday ahead of Wednesday’s kick-off of the Venice Film Festival in Italy.

Word leaked that Gibney was working on a Musk documentary as far back as March 2023, but the film has yet to receive a release date. HBO and its partners hint that Musk’s ongoing prominence in the global news cycle has made it challenging for the documentary team to determine when and how to conclude their biographical saga.

“The film continues to grow in scope as the story evolves,” the companies said in a joint statement, adding that they “will work to unveil a rich portrait, even as history unfolds in real-time.”

Back in March 2023, when one of Musk’s fans tweeted about the news of the planned doc, Musk posted a response saying, “It’s a hit piece.”

Gibney then posted a direct reply, saying, “How would you know?”

Famed for his thorough dissection of hot-button figures and scandals, Gibney made his breakthrough in 2005 with Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and went on to win the best documentary Oscar in 2007 for Taxi to the Dark Side, his documentary about the U.S. military’s use of extrajudicial detention and torture in the Middle East. Other standouts include Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (winner of three Emmys), We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks, and Citizen K, about Vladimir Putin and Russian billionaire exile Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Says Kent Sanderson, CEO of Bleecker Street: “No biographical portrait, outside of obvious political figures, has centered on an individual so at the crossroads of our society as Elon Musk. But there is also no filmmaker that I could possibly imagine bringing that story to audiences with unmatched clarity, audacity, and urgency more than Alex Gibney.”

The new theatrical distribution deal was negotiated by Bleecker Street’s Miranda King and Avy Eschenasy, with Nick Shumaker of Anonymous Content on behalf of the filmmakers. HBO Documentary Films previously pre-bought North American streaming and TV rights and Black Bear is handling international sales for the film, and did the deal with Universal Pictures Content Group.

Musk is produced by Gibney, Jessie Deeter, and Erin Edeiken from Jigsaw Productions; Zhang Xin and Joey Marra from Closer Media; Nick Shumaker and Jessica Grimshaw from Anonymous Content; and Dana O’Keefe from Double Agent. Executive producers include New Regency’s Yariv Milchan, and Natalie Lehmann; Richard Perello from Jigsaw; William Horberg from Closer Media; David Levine from Anonymous Content; as well as Kent Sanderson and Miranda King for Bleecker Street. Bleecker’s CEO, Kent Sanderson, and key creative, Bleecker executives Tyler DiNapoli and Myles Bender, previously worked with Gibney on We Steal Secrets, the acclaimed 2013 documentary about Julian Assange released by Focus Features and Universal Pictures International.