Just in time for Hulu’s Animaniacs revival, Variety is reporting that Kevin Dillon has signed on to play one of the Warner brothers in Dennis Quaid’s Ronald Reagan biopic—a film that we are now realizing will involve the actual Warner brothers and not Yakko, Wakko, or their Warner sister Dot, even though a live-action Animaniacs starring Kevin Dillon, horrible as that would be, sounds much more appealing than a Ronald Reagan biopic. We get it, he was a Republican and a movie star and he called his wife “mommy.” So cool.
Specifically, Dillon will be playing Jack Warner in director Sean McNamara’s Reagan, who was sort of the Yakko-esque leader of the group (but in a conniving way instead of a fun way). He also named names to the House Un-American Activities Committee, which is definitely not Yakko-esque. So maybe this is nothing like the Animaniacs? Either way, Quaid is starring in Reagan as the man himself, with Penelope Ann Miller as Nancy Reagan, Mena Suvari playing Reagan’s first wife Jane Wyman, and Jon Voight—taking time away from crossing his fingers that he’ll get to be a general in Trump’s army when the second Civil War hits—will be playing a KGB agent keeping tabs on Reagan. This movie sounds like a blast, huh?
Production on Reagan just resumed after a two-week suspension at the end of October after “a COVID-19 outbreak among crew members.” Too bad Trump’s COVID PSA scheme with Quaid didn’t work out, or else this all could’ve been avoided.
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So I’m guessing this isn’t going to show how Reagan’s war on drugs was specifically meant to impact poor and black people, how his response to the AIDS epidemic was basically exactly like Trump’s response to COVID-19 (“do nothing and hope it only kills the people we want it to kill”), and covertly funded arms to Contra rebels from selling arms to Iran, something that violated international law and resulted in eleven convictions and fourteen indictments within Reagan’s staff (Reagan claimed to have known nothing about it, but a report from Congress stated “If the president did not know what his national security advisers were doing, he should have.”)But then, those are all good things to the GOP. Then again, perhaps the movie will be about how Reagan was showing signs of dementia as early as 1985. That should show him in a good light, right?
I hope it shows him noping out of WW2 to make instructional films.
Nah, with Quaid and Voight involved, you know this is going to be all ‘’heroic fake Reagan’ rather than actual Reagan. Who’s financing it, the Koch brothers?
Just reading the article, it’s kind of hard to tell just what time period this going to cover (maybe… all of them?), but regardless… given Voight’s recent feelings, you would think he would be reluctant to play a KGB guy. Or maybe not— I forget if Russia’s an adversary in Voight’s Trump-addled brain.
I assume they will screen it for the rich who will then explain bits of it to us poor slobs.
Kevin Dillon to play one of the Warner brothers in Dennis Quaid’s Reagan
Swap Dennis for Randy and I’m in!
Randy actually did play Reagan the one year he was on SNL.
https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/forreagan/2859777
Ronald Reagan! The actor? Then who’s vice-president, Jerry Lewis? I suppose Jane Wyman is the First Lady!
(Posting this made me realize that people 30 years ago would have the same exact same reaction if we told them who our current president is).
I don’t think a Trump presidency would’ve been quite as implausible in 1990 as a Reagan presidency would’ve been in 1955; there was talk of Trump running in 1988.Also, Reagan was already married to Nancy by 1955, although that could be a deliberate mistake by the writers.
Reagan was a governor first, so it’s more like an early Arnold.
Alternately, just watch the video for Land of Confusion.
Spitting Image – still creepy after all these years.
Those puppets gave me nightmares for years.
I hope the film shows Ronnie applying for membership in the Communist party THREE times and being turned down each time for lack of any real political conviction and low intelligence. If only they had accepted him, it would have derailed his subsequent political ambitions.If they do touch upon Warner Brothers they should show how they were the only studio to support the left at the time and that they devoted huge resources to aiding Roosevelt during the Depression and WW II. Jack Warner in particular was an asshole but his films did a lot of good.
You know, I’ve been familiar with Warner Brothers my whole life and yet never considered the fact that the Warner Brothers were probably real people that actually existed.
Seriously. I was like, “Wait, am I… dumb?”