Alex Gibney developing doc on US health chief killing

Alex Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions and Anonymous Content are teaming to develop and produce a documentary project about the murder of US health insurance executive Brian Thompson and the national debate about health care that the killing has sparked. 

The companies have not said whether the project will be a feature or a streaming series, or whether Oscar-winner Gibney will himself direct. 

UnitedHealthcare chief executive Thompson was shot and killed on 4 December in Manhattan. On 9 December, Luigi Mangione was arrested and charged in connection with the shooting following a five-day hunt for the alleged killer. Mangione, who was found with a handwritten manifesto about the healthcare industry, has been hailed by some as a folk hero. 

According to a statement from Jigsaw and Anonymous, the documentary will look at aspects of the case ranging “from the crime’s seemingly meticulous execution to the alleged killer’s manifesto and his Ivy League background to the public’s unapologetic apathy towards the victim.” 

At least one other documentary on the Thompson/Mangione case – from filmmaker Stephen Robert Morse – is reportedly in the works. 

News of the Gibney project came on the same day that filmmaker Michael Moore, who directed 2007 US health care documentary Sicko and is reportedly mentioned in Mangione’s manifesto, entered the debate that has followed the killing. 

In a posting on his web site, Moore said he is being asked by press outlets if he condemns murder. “Yes, I condemn murder,” Moore wrote, “and that’s why I condemn America’s broken, vile, rapacious, bloodthirsty, unethical, immoral health care industry and I condemn every one of the CEOs who are in charge of it and I condemn every politician who takes their money and keeps this system going instead of tearing it up, ripping it apart, and throwing it all away.” 

The posting also said that, “After the killing of the CEO of United HealthCare, the largest of these billion dollar insurance companies, there was an immediate OUTPOURING of anger toward the health insurance industry. Some people have stepped forward to condemn this anger. I am not one of them.” 

The Thompson project will be the third collaboration between Anonymous and Jigsaw. The companies are currently co-producing documentary features Musk, about Elon Musk, with Gibney directing, and Orwell, about writer George Orwell.

This article first appeared in our sister title ScreenDaily