


In the great film Glengarry Glen Ross, Alec Baldwin has an epic scene in which he tries to motivate a group of salesmen. People “are sitting out there waiting to give you their money,” Baldwin says. “Are you willing to take it? Are you man enough to take it?”
Baldwin, a man with whom I almost worked with once , is a Hollywood liberal, but his guidance should be taken to heart by conservatives. Conservative films are doing quite well. The Sound of Freedom , the anti-human trafficking film, was made for $14 million and is approaching the $100 million mark in revenue. Meanwhile, Hollywood blockbusters such as Indiana Jones are collapsing. America is tired of superheroes and preaching leftists. They want some good pro-America content. Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick, for example, was a smash.
RUDY SALAS ANNOUNCES CAMPAIGN TO KNOCK OFF VULNERABLE CALIFORNIA HOUSE REPUBLICANThose numbers, along with the current Hollywood actors and writers strikes, offer a perfect opportunity for the Right to get into the film business. There is going to be a major shortfall of content in the next year due to the strike, which involves actors wanting more money for residues. The movie industry is a beast that devours content. It’s a great time to start telling our stories.
For the past few months, I’ve had talks with different people about the film rights to my book, The Devil's Triangle: Mark Judge vs the New American Stasi. One of the most interesting was with a successful Hollywood actor whom I won’t name. This person has been in films with Johnny Depp and first contacted me in the wake of the battle over my friend Brett Kavanaugh , who was seated on the Supreme Court after one of the most vicious conflicts in recent American history.
A group of opposition research goons tried to spread the falsehood that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted a girl when we were all in high school. Some truly weird and dark stuff happened to me at the time — everything from extortion attempts to honey traps. All of it was meant to get me to testify against my friend, who was innocent. That’s the story I tell in The Devil’s Triangle.
“Can you imagine the possibilities of making your story into a film?” Mr. Hollywood said. “You don’t make it as some apocalyptic good vs. evil religious film, although those elements are there. You make it as a psychological thriller. It’s not Left Behind — it’s All the President’s Men or The Lives of Others mixed with The Wild Life. And the flashbacks to the 1980s? Incredible. Imagine the soundtrack! There’s just so much there. Yet conservatives would never go for it. It’s too real. You were in the kill zone of that nightmare, but you’re far too flawed for conservative Hollywood.”
It’s a paradox: Hollywood does not make films with conservative heroes, and conservative filmmakers such as the ones who made The Sound of Freedom don’t like to depict flawed protagonists. The director and producer Judd Apatow once put it this way : “When you see Mike Pence, you think there’s a lot going on inside that guy. At least I do. But the problem is that Mike Pence will not tell you that. Lena [Dunham] will. There’s an openness and an honesty to what she does. She’s saying, I have these values, but I’m also a human being and I make mistakes and sometimes I’m crazy and selfish and other times I’m loving and supportive.”
Writer Gabriel Bell, who interviewed Apatow, added this: “The conservative viewpoint indeed has difficulties admitting fault, admitting weakness, admitting doubt or any kind of internal battle. So much of what makes good television or movies hangs on character development, and in many ways, the conservative viewpoint only allows characters to develop in one, mostly unquestioned way: toward faith and complete confidence. This may be why we get Atlas Shrugged instead of Ulysses.”
Indeed. Yet things are different now in Hollywood. The film industry has been offering characters who are as perfect and boring as the most G-rated, orthodox Christian film. The guilt over the poor depiction of women, gay people, and minorities throughout Hollywood history has led to an overcorrection. We have characters such as Rey in Star Wars or Captain Marvel who are flawless. Wokeness has killed subtly and humanity.
There are plans to turn a book about President Joe Biden by leftist John Heilemann into a film on Showtime. Here’s what Heilemann had to say about his project: “I first met Joe Biden in 1986 when I was in college and he was getting ready to run for president the first time, and I’ve been following his ups and downs, his triumphs and tragedies, ever since. The story of how, against all odds and against the apocalyptic backdrop of America in 2020, Biden rallied in the winter of his life to defeat Trump, and, in the eyes of many, to save the country, is one of the great political tales of this or any age, and I’m thrilled to have a chance to tell it.”
This is nauseating hagiography, worse than anything a Christian film studio could produce. As an alternative, The Devil’s Triangle would be complex, with an imperfect protagonist, not to mention sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll.
Maybe Quentin Tarantino will do it.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM RESTORING AMERICAMark Judge is an award-winning journalist and the author of The Devil's Triangle: Mark Judge vs. the New American Stasi . He is also the author of God and Man at Georgetown Prep, Damn Senators, and A Tremor of Bliss.