Alex Gibney doesn’t shy away from tough topics.

The progressive director has tackled Lance Armstrong’s drug cheating, Guantanamo Bay, Enron and even Eliot Spitzer via his documentary lens. But now his recent film criticizing the Church of Scientology has him watching his back, he claims.

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“Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief” debuted at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. HBO broadcast the documentary in March to big ratings.

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The film’s impact is still being felt months later, Gibney tells Business Insider.

“They’ve come after the people in the film much harder than I. But they’ve come after me pretty hard and it’s a strange thing to be vilified 24/7. There is a set of danger around that and I have to be concerned.”

“There is a set of danger around that and I have to be concerned.”

The church paid for a full-page ad in the New York Times to counter the film, which alleges that Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard created the movement for profit, among many other charges. The church says “Going Clear” features misinformation that unfairly taints its organization.

This is hardly the first time the church has taken an aggressive approach to its media critics — and that’s putting it mildly:

  • Scientology officials threatened to sue Vanity Fair magazine for an article alleging it “auditioned” women for star proponent Tom Cruise to date. Despite a public attack on the story, no lawsuit was filed.
  • The take-no-prisoners “South Park” duo of Trey Parker and Matt Stone teased the church in a 2005 episode of their Comedy Central series. In 2011, according to multiple sources, the church investigated the show’s creators in a number of ways, the Village Voice reported. One investigator allegedly sifted through their trash seeking material that could be used against them.
  • Gibney claims film distributors were pressured not to show the film earlier this year. His movie did appear starting June 18 in Australia, a process that led the church to send letters to the Aussie distributor vowing defamation lawsuits for doing so.
  • The church sued Time magazine for its 1991 article called “The Cult of Greed,” citing the story’s negative impact on gaining new members. The suit was dismissed in 1996.