September 5 makes extensive use of archival footage from ABC's coverage of the 1972 Summer Olympics and the hostage crisis.[7] Fehlbaum and his team spent months researching the events, and worked with a production design team to create an authentic replica of the broadcasting facility used by ABC Sports on that day.[8]
Release
The film premiered on 29 August 2024, as the opening film at the 81st Venice International Film Festival in the OrizzontiExtra section.[9] A few days before being announced as part of the Venice slate, Paramount Pictures' Republic Pictures acquired worldwide sales rights outside Germany, Austria and Switzerland to the film. Following an overwhelmingly positive response at Venice and Telluride, Paramount decided it was best to keep the film with them, with the main studio opting to officially acquire distribution rights. Scott Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter speculated that the Toronto International Film Festival rejected the film "ostensibly because it might generate controversy related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict", despite screening the documentary Russians at War, whose portrayal of the Russian invasion of Ukraine "did result in protests of such a scale that the fest ended up pulling the film."[10]
Originally scheduling it for a wide release on November 27, 2024, Paramount later pivoted to a limited theatrical release on November 29, expanding wide two weeks later on December 13.[12][13] It was shifted again to a limited release on December 13, 2024, before expanding wide on January 17, 2025,[6] but wide release was further limited and delayed due to the Southern California wildfires.[14]
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 91% of 99 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.1/10. The website's consensus reads: "Capturing the compromises, dedication, and human fallibility of the newsroom, September 5 is a worthy chronicle of a tragic flashpoint in broadcast media history."[15]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 77 out of 100, based on 26 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[16]
