Michael Moore's looking to turn up the heat on President Bush before election day.

The gadfly filmmaker has sealed a deal with cable operator In Demand to air Fahrenheit 9/11 as a three-hour pay-per-view event Nov. 1, the night before Americans go to the polls to choose their next president.

However, because the blockbuster polemic is already out on DVD, the broadcast is having to be packaged a little differently.

Fahrenheit--which has become the top-grossing documentary of all time with $119 million in domestic ticket sales and is also a hot-seller on video with 2 million DVDs and VHS units sold since Tuesday, its first day in stores?will air as part of a program dubbed The Michael Moore Pre-Election Special.

Along with showing the flick, the pay-per-view special will also feature interviews by politically active celebs who will discuss points raised in Fahrenheit as well as urge people to get out the vote.

(Tim, Susan, Sean?)

Insiders close to the negotiations told Daily Variety that to get permission to broadcast Fahrenheit on the tube however, In Demand had to make several concessions to Columbia TriStar to ease the distributor's concerns that the broadcast would undercut video sales.

First and foremost, the cable company can't promote the film by its title, but instead must refer to it as the aforementioned The Michael Moore Pre-Election Special. In Demand also must not launch any advertising for the Fahrenheit screening, er, special until Oct. 24, a week before its scheduled air date.

Talk about an October surprise.

Typically, a movie doesn't air on TV until 45 to 60 days after it's already been released to DVD to give its backers plenty of time to cash in on the home video bonanza.

Moore, on the other hand, has made no bones about getting his incendiary doc on the tube before as many people as possible, even if it costs him profits (which it obviously won't) in the hopes of influencing the election.

He even pulled out of the best documentary Oscar race to give Fahrenheit a shot on TV. Per rules by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, documentaries are automatically disqualified from that category if they air on the tube within nine months of their theatrical release.

Ironically, the rule was instituted to raise the profile of docs and give them a longer run in theaters. However, Moore's film has become such a phenomenon that the writer-director is now mulling about going for the Big One: Best Picture. (By contrast, producer Robert Greenwald yanked his documentary Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War from a scheduled pay-per-view air date so he could qualify for the Best Documentary Oscar).

To watch Fahrenheit, viewers will only have to pony up $9.95 for the broadcast, which will take place between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. E/T.

A rep for the lefty firebrand was unavailable for comment, but did tell Variety that reports of a final deal were "not true" and that the two parties are still talking.

"There are no signed contracts," said the rep, adding that "DVD sales are going through the roof."

In any case, In Demand negotiated with Moore's backers, Fellowship Adventure Group, for the right to air Fahrenheit on pay-per-view when it makes its official bow on cable in January.

The lefty firebrand is pulling out all the stops in order to help Democrats oust George W. Bush from the Oval office.

Moore recently took to the road in his own political awareness campaign he calls The Slacker Uprising Tour, a 60-city jaunt whose goal is to get "slackers everywhere" off their butts and to the polls to set a modern-day turnout record come Nov. 2.

To help energize his audiences, which have attracted massive audiences up to 12,000 strong, he's been handing out gag gifts, usually 12-packs of Hanes briefs and ramen instant noodles, to students at each tour stop in an effort to get them to cast their vote.

Moore's underwear giveaway drew the ire of the Republican Party in his home state of Michigan, who filed a criminal complaint with local prosecutors this week alleging the Flint native tried to bribe voters (these are the same people who booed Moore at the GOP convention last month).

The allegation is unlikely to result in charges and was laughed off by the Oscar winner, who said it was the latest in a long list of "dirty tricks" the GOP has pulled against him. Others included lobbying theater owners not to show Fahrenheit and filing complaints with the Federal Election Commission to block commercials for the film from airing.