'Fahrenheit 9/11' commotion is influencing online ticket sales in expected -- and unexpected -- ways.

What's hotter than 'Fahrenheit 9/11?' The online activity surrounding the Michael Moore film.

The controversial examination of the Bush administration debuted as Hollywood's top weekend film last weekend, taking in $21.8 million in its first three days. And the Web sites supporting the film also topped the charts for user visits.

According to comScore Media Metrix, the furor began last Friday as users scrambled to secure tickets to weekend shows that were selling out quickly. More than 50,000 users visited F911Tix.com that day -- an increase of 250 percent from the previous Friday. Then on Monday, as Americans returned to work and the film became a topic of water cooler conversation, 101,000 users visited MichaelMoore.com, the director's personal site, an increase of 115 percent over the prior Monday.

According to Hitwise data, fahrenheit911.com became the No. 1 official movie site in its movie category database on June 25, capturing 1.06 percent of U.S. visits to movie sites. That's more than the 'Harry Potter', site, which captured 1.05 percent.

Moore’s personal Web site has been even more popular than the 'Fahrenheit 9/11' Web site. Between June 12 and June 26, his site experienced a 418 percent increase in U.S. visits, jumping to number one in the Hitwise Politics category last Friday.

And of people visiting his site on June 25, more than 30 percent came from search engines and directories. After arriving at this site, more than 20 percent then went to the official movie Web site. Furthermore, after visiting, more than 50 percent then went to f911tix.com to purchase tickets to see the film.

Both Web sites -- fahrenheit911.com and michaelmoore.com -- were popular among a similar demographic -- male and female (male slightly more dominant) 25 to 34 years old(24.7 percent and 28.36 percent respectively).

Heavy search and user review activity

Yahoo! says that the movie has also become the most searched documentary in the portal's history. But more than that, the film generated a record number of user reviews in its first three days of wide release. Amateur reviewers on Yahoo! Movies wrote 5,589 reviews of 'Fahrenheit 9/11' in only three days, beating the previous record-holder, 'The Passion of the Christ,' which garnered 4,516 reviews in its first three days in February.

Both 'Fahrenheit' and 'Passion' piqued interest from older audiences (with the majority in the 35 to 44 age group) in the one-month period leading up to each film’s release date. More men (65 percent) searched for 'Fahrenheit' information on Yahoo!, while more women (52.5 percent) searched for ' Passion. While 'Fahrenheit' garnered the most searches from Yahoo! users on the coasts (including San Diego, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco/San Jose), 'Passion' inspired Yahoo! searchers in the south and the midwest (including Dallas-Ft. Worth, Indianapolis, Oklahoma City, Atlanta).

Yahoo! Movies' five most-reviewed films in first three days of release:

1. 'Farenheit 9/11': 5,589 reviews
2. 'The Passion of the Christ': 4,516 reviews
3. 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban': 3,855 reviews
4. 'Matrix Revolutions': 3,416 reviews
5. 'Lord of the Rings': The Return of the King 3,137 reviews

Yahoo! reviewers are rating the film a B, just below the critics' B+ rating. The industry is watching this weekend to see how 'Fahrenheit' fares against 'Spiderman 2,' which opened yesterday and, as of this writing, was scoring an A- by viewers and critics alike.

And in an interesting side note, Daily Variety recently reported that a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management and two colleagues have developed a mathematical model they say will predict movie revenues, including second-weekend box office, based largely on first-weekend online reviews from Yahoo! Movies.