REAGAN Movie (2024)

Contact Your Elected Officials
Dennis Quaid as Reagan

REAGAN captures the indomitable spirit of the American dream…

IN THEATERS AUGUST 30

Reagan follows the path of a young boy from the dusty roads of Dixon, Illinois, to Hollywood, the Presidency of the United States and the world stage.

Synopsis

Ronald Reagan’s story is told through the voice of Viktor Petrovich, a KGB agent (a composite character based on real individuals) who closely followed Reagan since his days in Hollywood. The film begins with an aging Petrovich, now 90 years old, being visited by an up and coming Russian leader who wants to know how the Soviet Union was lost. Petrovich, the spy who knows everything there is to know about Reagan, begins recounting the tale of his great adversary: the man he nicknamed โ€œThe Crusader,โ€ beginning in 1922 when 11-year old Ronald Reagan goes through his first life crisis.

From dusty small-town roots, to the glitter of Hollywood, and then on to commanding the world stage,ย REAGANย is a cinematic journey of overcoming the odds. Told through the voice of Viktor Petrovich, a former KGB agent whose life becomes inextricably linked with Ronald Reagan’s when Reagan first caught the Sovietsโ€™ attention as an actor in Hollywood, this film offers a perspective as unique as it is captivating.ย 

Dennis Quaid brings to life a story that transcends the boundaries of a traditional biopic, offering a profound exploration of the enduring impact of the power of one man who overcame the odds, sustained by the love of a woman who supported him in his journey. 


Directed By

Sean McNamara

Starring

  • Dennis Quaid
  • Jon Voight
  • Penelope Ann Miller
  • Mena Suvari
  • Lesley-Anne Down
  • David Henrie
  • Kevin Dillon

REAGAN releases in theaters nationwide on August 30, 2024.

Reagan Movie Website

Inside the Making of Hollywood’s New Ronald Reagan Movie

Newsweek

Guthrie, Oklahomaโ€”Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman have just entered Hollywood’s Cocoanut Grove circa 1940. The director is shouting “action” and the extras at the famous nightclub begin to chat amongst themselves and sip their cocktails. Too tame, so the director shouts again. “Action!” Not good enough. “Action!” Each time the directive comes with more urgency, suggesting that the scene lacks the requisite enthusiasm.

No, this isn’t a decades-old movie starring the famous actors, it is the set of the September 2020 shooting of a movie titled Reagan, and it stars Dennis Quaid as the title character and Mena Suvari as his first wife. Subbing for the Cocoanut Grove is a Masonic temple that sits on 10 acres in Guthrie, Oklahoma, a site that also doubles for the Oval Office and the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin where Reagan pleaded, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

The movie is one of the signs of conservative resilience in notoriously liberal Hollywood: a biopic of a man whose loyalty to the Christian right and hard line against communism earned him a landslide reelection in 1984, winning 49 of 50 states. Reagan’s campaign cry four years earlier might sound familiar even to those who weren’t alive at the time: “Let’s Make America Great Again.” The script touches only briefly on perceived Reagan flaws such as his slowness in addressing the AIDS crisis, but the filmmakers say the work is no hagiography.

“The greatest challenge is not to be a super-fan,” says producer Mark Joseph. “There’s a lot of us who respect Reagan, but we had to get over that to tell his story. Nobody cares about Superman without Clark Kent.” The $25 million film, which was made and financed independently, finished with principal photography on July 19. The filmmakers are aiming for a wide release in 2022.

A C-SPAN poll of presidential historians this year ranked Reagan 9th among all U.S. presidents, while in a 2018 Quinnipiac University poll, 28 percent of Americans surveyed rated Reagan the best president since World War IIโ€”putting him at the top of the list. Those folks are the low-hanging fruit, but filmmakers hope that even moviegoers antagonistic to the 40th president will put aside partisanship to check out the movie. “In our movie, Democrats aren’t Reagan’s enemies, the totalitarian Soviet Empire was,” says Joseph. He cites a scene where Reagan prays with Tip O’Neill, the Democratic Speaker of the House at the time, as an example of the film’s bipartisan spirit.

Quaid, a lifelong registered independent, doesn’t hide his love for Reagan. “He was my favorite president,” he says while holding his broken surgical mask onto his face on set in the midst of the coronavirus emergency. “One thing audiences may not remember is that Reagan started off as a Democrat, and he was against the Vietnam War,” says Quaid. “They’ll also find out he wasn’t a rich man. His famous Reagan Ranch is smaller than my ranch in Montana.”

Another of the film’s stars, Jon Voight, is a self-described former leftist who draws plenty of media attention now that he has assumed the late Charlton Heston’s role as the most outspoken conservative in Hollywood.

“The things Reagan faced have taken hold. He said we have to be vigilant or our great freedoms will be in danger,” Voight told Newsweek. “The indoctrination of children and everything else perpetrated by the left, he understood that danger. We’re fighting an important war against leftist forces and we must prevail. That’s the story to me.”

Penelope Ann Miller, who plays Nancy Reagan (and carried My Turn, the former first lady’s autobiography in her handbag while on the set, calling it her Bible), has a different view. “I don’t do politics,” says Miller. “We’re making a biopic, telling how Reagan went from football, to radio, to acting, to president of the Screen Actors Guild, to marrying Jane and then Nancy. We’re not pushing an agenda.”

When Miller first read the script, written by Howard Klausner and Jonas McCord, she felt it failed to show Nancy’s impact on her husband. To strengthen the portrayal, she ad-libbed tidbits from My Turn here and there, for example when she says, “Let Ronnie be Ronnie,” while he’s being prepped for a debate.

“People who see this movie will say, ‘I didn’t know his dad was an alcoholic; I didn’t know he met Nancy like that.’ There’s a lot behind the scenes that people will be fascinated about,” Miller says. “It’s like Rocky: it’s not about a fighter, it’s a love story between him and Adrian. That’s what we’re capturing. Ronnie loved Nancy so much that it was difficult for them to be apart.”

The comparison to Rocky is apt, given that its director, John Avildsen, had signed on to direct Reagan just prior to his death in 2017. The job fell to Sean McNamara, whose production credits include Soul Surfer and who directed several Christmas movies and lots of Disney Channel live-action shows. Not to mention that as a young man in 1981 he handled sound at Reagan’s first inauguration.

Like Quaid, McNamara identifies as an independent. “I grew up in a time where political foes could fight like hell all day but have a beer in the evening,” he tells Newsweek. “They started with a respect for one another. I go to the set every day, politically neutral.”

BY PAUL BOND

Read Full Article on Newsweek.com

The Thinking Conservative
The Thinking Conservativehttps://www.thethinkingconservative.com/
The goal of THE THINKING CONSERVATIVE is to help us educate ourselves on conservative topics of importance to our freedom and our pursuit of happiness. We do this by sharing conservative opinions on all kinds of subjects, from all types of people, and all kinds of media, in a way that will challenge our perceptions and help us to make educated choices.

AI Takes Customer Service from Doublespeak to Triplespeak

Corporations are replacing customer service agents with AI agents. Here's a real-life example of attempting to use AI to have my internet restored.

The Left’s Descent into Extremismย ย 

The political left, from mainstream Dems to radical Antifa, have embraced extremism, alienating swaths of the public and undermining their own influence.

Roger Stone Speaks About Trump at Turning Point USA

Longtime Donald Trump friend, Roger Stone, gave a speech at the 2025 TPUSA convention offering his take on the recent Epstein List controversy.

Dredging the Swamp For CNN RINOs

Epstein ran a multinational child sex trafficking ring to service and entrap political and business elites to blackmail and to usurp democratic governance.

Trump Turned His Head And Saved America

It was a turn of President Trump's head to view an immigration chart that saved his life. It was Divine intervention, God saved Trump so he could save America.

Gut Bacteria Could Help Remove โ€˜Forever Chemicalsโ€™ From Body

Researchers found that nine species of gut bacteria can help detoxify the body from forever chemicals, absorbing PFAS linked to cancer and other illnesses.

Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell ready to reveal ‘truth’ of pedophile client list

Ghislaine Maxwell is only person serving time on child sex trafficking despite fact that pedophileย Jeffrey Epsteinย allegedly controlled a web of underage girls.

8 Chinese Nationals on Student Visas Charged in Computer โ€˜Pop-Upโ€™ Scam Targeting Elders

Chinese nationals on student visas in the US have been indicted for alleged role in scam targeting elderly Americans through fraudulent computer pop-ups.

ICE Detains 361 Illegal Immigrants, Finds 14 Minors in Operation at California Marijuana Farms

DHS Sec Kristi Noem said ICE agents detained 361 illegal immigrants and found 14 unaccompanied minors during operation on marijuana farms in CA.

Trump Says He Spoke to Bongino Amid Reports of Infighting Over Epstein Files

President Trump spoke to FBI Deputy Dir. Dan Bongino, indicating the two remain close despite reported friction over release of Jeffrey Epstein docs.

EU Wonโ€™t Retaliate to Trumpโ€™s 30 Percent Tariff, Countermeasures on Hold Until August

EC President Ursula von der Leyen said EU will extend suspension on countermeasures to U.S. tariffs until next month while trade negotiations continue.

Trump Announces 30 Percent Tariff on EU, Mexico

President Donald Trump has announced a 30 percent tariff on imports from the European Union and Mexico, to go into effect on Aug. 1, 2025.

Tariff Windfall Drives Surprise $27 Billion US Budget Surplus in June

New data from Treasury Dept show that surging tariff revenues in June helped U.S. government post an unexpected budget surplus of $27 billion.
spot_img

Related Articles