Posted on 09/06/2011 11:49:57 AM PDT by markomalley
Hollywood now has at least three politically themed movies lined up for the 2012 election season, but political experts say there’s little or no evidence they’ll have any impact on election results.
“I haven’t seen any evidence that any movies ever had an impact on a campaign,” said Tony Fratto, a former George W. Bush spokesman who is now a partner at the consulting firm Hamilton Place Strategies. Aside from political audiences “inside the beltway, New York and Los Angeles, there’s just not a lot of attention” paid to political movies, he said.
The movies include a drama about the successful killing by Osama bin Laden at the direction of President Barack Obama, a comedy about Southern politicians and a biopic about Republican consultant Karl Rove.
“College Republicans” begins shooting in Texas in November. The movie “is about when Karl Rove and Lee Atwater first met, which is when Karl Rove ran for president of the College Republicans, and that’s when they sort of discovered dirty tricks. It’s interesting to see them take that journey together,” producer Maya Browne told The Wrap, a web publication that covers the movie industry. In 2008, Browne produced a pro-Obama video, titled “My name is Barack Obama.”
Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis will play competing South Carolina politicians in the comedy, “Southern Rivals,” which begins filming this fall. Ferrell told movie industry reporters in April that the movie will be out in time for the 2012 election season and will “have comments on the circumstance now in modern day politics.” (RELATED: Will Ferrell goes Dubya again: President Bush reacts to Osama bin Laden’s death)
Kathryn Bigelow is directing the drama about the bin Laden operation. In 2008, she won industry awards for directing “The Hurt Locker,” a movie about U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan charged with handling unexploded bombs. Bigelow’s new movie is scheduled to open in October 2012, and is getting extensive aid from the U.S. military.
In August, a White House spokesman dismissed as “ridiculous’’ suggestions that Bigelow is getting an extraordinary amount of aid from the White House. His dismissal came after New York Republican Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, urged an investigation into reports the administration granted Bigelow “high-level access” for a movie about the killing of the Islamist terror chief.
Hollywood has tried to influence politics before, most notably with the 2004 movie “The Day After Tomorrow,” which was based on the perceived threat of global warming and hit the theaters in May before George W. Bush’s race against Democratic Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. The movie was a financial hit.
“That may be the best example” of a political movie, said Fratto. It got a lot of attention from political advocates, he said, and “a lot of acclaim, wide distribution … [but] it certainly didn’t swing the attitude of the public in favor of climate change legislation.”
Amazing on how all these movies have a left slant to them...
They can make as many lousy films as they want - it won’t make any difference.
Actually, this can be seen as a sign of desperation.
The ride’s over, boys and girls. There’s no money left, thanks to Mr. Obama and his ilk.
They fail to mention the most blatant cinematic effort to influence an election, the propaganda movie Fahrenheit 911 by Lumpy Riefenstahl.
If the movies will have little or no impact on the election, why did Hollyweird sspend the money to make them?
My BS meter went off when I read this.
It truly baffles the mind.
Make a conservative, pro-America movie - and you make money and win awards (Hurt Locker, for example).
Make a Libtard movie, and you loose your shirt.
Michael Savage is correct, Liberalism is a mental disease; it’s impervious to logic, rational thinking and common sense.
We need to raise taxes on Hollyweird and stop subsidizing this crap.
For those of you who think hollywood production is irrelevant, a lot of young ones nowadays ‘learn history’ esp. contemporary history or philosophies, from movies.
Reading actual history is simply too tough.
Make a movie with a teachable theme (esp. if you have the title - based on a true story), people spent 90 min to get the condensed version of fantasy/fiction and think they’ve learned some real thing.
How do I know? From personal experience that high school students think all cloning is wrong. Why? Because Spielberg made a movie about cloning dinosaurs and it all turned out horribly wrong ……
Seriously, a biopic about Karl Rove?
Somebody in Hollywood thinks the audience wants to see THAT?
Coming to the 99 cent bin at Wal-Mart for Christmas 2012
They better hope people have the money to see one movie before the next election...........much less 3. I know I won’t be paying theater prices to see this kind of crap.
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