Big-Time Producer's Bold Reaction to Michael Moore Being Ousted From Academy Position

In a move that went nearly unnoticed last month, left-leaning filmmaker Michael Moore was ousted from his position as a governor on the Academy’s documentary board.

Branko Lustig (left), Steven Spielberg (center), and Gerald Molen (right) received Academy Awards for 'Schindler's List' in 1994. (Sygma/Corbis)

And Oscar-winning producer Gerald Molen (Minority Report, Rain Man, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List) is positively thrilled with the development.

"I am grateful to the leadership of the Academy as well as the voters for returning integrity and balance to a revered and respected national iconic organization,” the noted producer wrote in a letter Thursday to Cheryl Boone Isaacs, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

“On behalf of my fellow filmmakers and the vast American Heartland which, on occasion, has felt disenfranchised by the Academy, I want to personally thank you and the Academy for removing Mr. Moore and restoring a fair and impartial voting process to the documentary category of the Oscars,” he added.

Moore, who reportedly lost the spot in July, is famous for his films, yes, but he’s arguably more famous for being an outspoken liberal.

And it was Moore’s famously liberal beliefs that prompted Molen to seek his removal as a governor overseeing the process of nominating documentaries, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

“Foxes shouldn’t guard hen houses and Michael Moore shouldn’t have been in charge of the documentary nominating process at the Academy,” Molen’s letter reads.

This isn’t the first time that Molen has voiced his displeasure with the liberal filmmaker's presence on the board. When Moore first made his way to the documentary branch in 2010, Molen wrote a scathing letter to president Hawk Koch, Molen criticizing the decision.

In the letter, Molen insinuated that conservative author Dinesh D’Souza’s “2016: Obama’s America” was snubbed at the direction of Moore. Molen also requested that Koch see that “2016” get “a fair shake,” The Hollywood Reporter notes.

“We’ve already experienced a time in Hollywood where an atmosphere of oppression and fear was prevalent and people were punished for their political views. Let us make sure that never happens again,” he wrote in his letter to Koch.

Molen echoed similar sentiments in his letter to Isaacs: “I look forward to next year’s voting being more in line with what the Oscar audiences would expect.”

The ousting of Moore, he notes, “is a major victory for the silent super-majority in America.”

Dinesh D’Souza. (Getty Images)

D'Souza, for his part, hailed the news of Moore’s removal: “This is a great victory for the American people and the first glimmer of hope that future Academy voting will look less like a North Korean election.”

The conservative author’s next project, “America,” a look at "the meaning of what America the country was, is and should be,” is due in theaters July 2014, and he hopes it will “replace Moore’s ‘Farenheit 9/11’ as the highest-grossing political documentary of all time,” The Wrap reports.

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Follow Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) on Twitter

Featured image Getty Images.

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