at that time, disney was the parent company of miramax. according to the book "disneywar", disney executives did not know that miramax agreed to finance the film until they saw a posting on the "drudge report". michael eisner (the ceo of disney at that time) called harvey weinstein (co-chairman of miramax at that time) and ordered him to drop the film. in addition, disney sent two letters to weinstein demanding miramax drop the film. weinstein felt disney had no right to block the releasing of "fahrenheit 9/11" since the film's $6 million budget was well below the level at which miramax needed to seek disney's approval, and it would not be rated nc-17. but weinstein was in contract negotiations with disney, so he offered a compromise that he would drop the film if disney did not like it. disney responded by having peter murphy send weinstein a letter stating that the film's $6 million budget was only a bridge financing and miramax would sell off its interest in the movie to get those $6 million back; according to the same letter, miramax was also expected to publicly state that it would not release the film.