I suspect the answer, in this case, is more likely to be “There just isn’t a lot of market for watching a four hour long documentary in a movie theatre.”

Like, I love Hbomberguy and Folding Ideas, y’know? I am the actual target audience for four hour long documentaries. But if you told me that I could go watch HBomb’s latest in a theatre instead of at home, I’d think you were fucking insane.

Is it impossible there was foul play? No, of course not. But I think this is a pretty good application for Occam’s razor.

Let’s see what happens when it hits streaming. That’s where the real market will be.