Nuke the popcorn, fire up your TV, and get ready to laugh just for the fun of it with the perfect Labor Day film. We’re dusting off a comedy classic from the early aughts, and “White Chicks” makes one thing very clear: The joke’s on everyone. 
Black, Latino, Asian, white, skinny, fat, “differently abled,” man, woman, rich, broke, straight, gay — it’s all fair game. To add a little of Marlon Wayans’ main character energy as FBI agent Marcus Copeland, “Triple T-K-A … Time to kick *ss.”
It took me a second to get into the flow of slapstick 2000s-era humor (did we used to have a longer attention span for gags that never end?). But after the first in a series of recurring jokes about Vanessa Carlton’s smash hit “A Thousand Miles,” I was sold and singing along. Makin&#8217; my way downtown. Walkin&#8217; fast, faces pass and I&#8217;m homebound. 
But I was in stitches when that milquetoast number set up a joke about a bunch of white girls (including Marlon and Shawn Wayans in whiteface) stuffed into a convertible somewhere in Long Island belting out the lyrics to 50 Cent’s “Realest N*gg*s.” Yeah. All the lyrics. 
The plot goes like this. Two disgraced FBI agents try to save their careers by signing on to the unenviable task of protecting two wealthy white girls from getting kidnapped in the Hamptons over Labor Day weekend. When the girls don’t want to go along with the plan, the Wayans brothers impersonate them. As they are forced to blend in with high society, shenanigans ensue. 
“White Chicks” feels like a guilty pleasure compared to more recent comedies that assign you the dubious homework of determining whether a blank stare and dry-as-dust one-liner count as “humor.” We accept this subpar invention as comedy, even though it has no effect on the corners of our mouths. Or souls. It’s intellectual, elevated, and award-winning. Hardy har har.
“Mean Girls,” “Napoleon Dynamite,” and “Anchorman” also came out in 2004 on the coattails of blockbusters such as “Legally Blonde,” “Zoolander,” “School of Rock,” “Old School,” and “Dodgeball.” That decade, we also got “Superbad,” “Knocked Up,” “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” and “Tropic Thunder.” All of these are worth watching again because they’re objectively hilarious. If not every joke stands the test of time, the freedom to laugh at anything reminds us that we used to have a collective sense of humor.
Even the opening scene of “White Chicks” serves up the type of satisfying payoff great comedies once routinely pumped out for the popcorn-munching theater crowd. Instead of a climactic guilt-inducing lecture on how you could do better, there’s a choreographed impromptu dance-off. A “Carrie”-style paint spill to give the cartoon villains a taste of their own medicine. The brothers transform into white girls with mere seconds to spare, just like “Mrs. Doubtfire” did back in ’93.
This kind of slapstick humor leaves no ridiculous stone unturned. But in the time since “White Chicks” came out, we’ve become dead serious about two crucial elements of the film’s success. We don’t joke about race. Period. And we really don’t make fun of men in drag. Anyone living their truth with such bravery is the opposite of a good time.
Luckily, we don’t have to worry about any of that nonsense for the hour and 49 minutes of “White Chicks.”
National treasure, actor, and pectoral muscle-popper Terry Crews makes his entrance as Latrell Spencer, announcing, “Man, it may be summertime in the Hamptons, but it is snowing up in here,” as he surveys a sea of white women drinking chardonnay in pastel cardigans. “Hand me my boots ’cuz I’m about to go skiing.”
He’s like a wild panther in a fenced-in pen of white bunny rabbits. Did I mention we’re not doing any of that “consensual” relationship stuff? Because to Latrell, no means yes. “You know what they say, once you go black, you’re gonna need a wheelchair,” he advises. A beat later, a woman wheels up to him, cooing, “Hey, Latrell.” 
It’s funny. And after spending 30 minutes in “White Chicks” world, I don’t feel bad about laughing at it. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say most of us aren’t racist, misogynistic, homophobic, or any of the other “-ists.” No offense, but we’re just people doing normal people stuff. Bless our hearts if we can find a way not to take ourselves so seriously while we do it.  
Sprinkled between fart jokes and bits about the &#8217;90s weight-loss drug fen-phen (someday riffing on Ozempic will peg movies as quarter-century classics), a deliciously cringe-inducing cornrow-braiding scene sees Busy Philipps’ character, Karen Googlestein, soften toward the incognito federal agents. She explains how hard it is to love someone who doesn’t love you back. The other (real) girls weigh in, leaning into PMS tropes like eating ice cream straight out of the container. The guys begin to understand girl problems on a human level. It’s so broad-strokes and earnest, I actually get teary. 
I can’t tell if I identify with these ridiculous characters, or if I’m feeling nostalgic for a time when movies about <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/what-a-1982-comedy-teaches-us-about-men-and-women">men dressed as women</a> dished punchlines and tender moments instead of virtue-signaling slaps across the face. Maybe it was my one glass of wine.
Entertainment like this doesn&#8217;t exist anymore. Maybe we’ve “progressed” so far up our own navels we’ll never truly laugh at movies again — at least the way Hollywood wants us to. “That’s funny,” we say, stone-faced. “LOL” without so much as a flicker in our eyes. It’s dark humor, they say. Dramedy. Drama. Drab.
Still, even now when we’ve been conditioned to treat men impersonating women with the reverence typically bestowed upon a saint, the Wayans brothers seem to be teasing “White Chicks 2” somewhere on the horizon. They say they don’t want to make empty promises to fans who have been holding out hope for 22 years. Too late for that.
“These people don’t play about ‘White Chicks,’” <a href="https://x.com/etnow/status/2044959026837094429">Marlon Wayans</a> told Entertainment Tonight in April, already doing a bit. “You know who be actin’ crazy? White chicks, like, ‘Are you gonna do it or not?’ And we’re like, ‘Bro, calm down.’ … The Wayans are doing ‘White Chicks 2,’ but … we’re not doing it yet.”
Girl. Youuuu know Iiii’d walk a thousand miiiles, if I could just seee youuu … toniiiiight.
***
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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‘White Chicks’ Proves Why A Lost Era Of Comedy Matters

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What makes a movie Christian? Some reviewers have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/what-christopher-nolan-couldnt-bring-himself-to-do">argued</a> Christopher Nolan&#8217;s &#8220;Odyssey&#8221; was shaped by Christian themes. Daily Wire host <a class="css-1unrqcp">Michael Knowles has called both the horror film </a><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dont-believe-reviews-mother-thought-provoking-michael-j-knowles">&#8220;Mother!&#8221;</a> and the coming-of-age story <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/review-lady-bird-brutally-honest-christian-michael-j-knowles">&#8220;Lady Bird&#8221;</a> Christian, though neither film purported to be. Can a film be Christian if it doesn&#8217;t explicitly mention God, and even if it depicts behavior that Christians find objectionable?
I was listening to a <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/016-the-power-of-1-minute-with-russ-devos/id1549028686?i=1000637979057">podcast</a> recently when the topic of “Christian” movies came up. Not titles that explicitly depict the life of Christ, such as “The Passion of the Christ” or the show “The Chosen,” but movies which one might group under the umbrella term of “Christian.” Leadership coach Russ De Vos said his favorite movie, and the one which pointed him toward Jesus, was the 1995 blockbuster “Braveheart” starring Mel Gibson as William Wallace.
This choice surprised me, though it turns out it should not have. “Braveheart” apparently routinely ranks high, if not at the top, on lists of people’s favorite “Christian” movies, especially among men, who find in its depiction of William Wallace an example of heroic and sacrificial manliness. Yet this got me thinking: What do we mean when we describe a movie as not just inspiring, but as “Christian”? 
I don&#8217;t have a definitive answer, but I can tell you why “Braveheart” doesn&#8217;t make the cut for me. It is unquestionably a rousing, beautiful film, and a good piece of dramatic art. But it fails my “Christian” test because, gratuitous violence aside, it is unabashedly historically inaccurate.
All historical movies take a degree of historical license; essentially, they have to. Verifiable facts about the historical past are so sparse, especially when it comes to 13th-century Scotland, that anyone wishing to dramatize the story must embellish certain details and invent others simply to fill in the missing pieces of the historical jigsaw puzzle. Yet surely a line should be drawn at inserting details that we know for sure could never have happened. And “Braveheart” is full of such <a href="https://scotlands-stories.com/braveheart-historical-check/">inventions</a>, some of which are laughable, some defamatory. 
One of Christianity’s claims to truth concerns its rigorous historical accuracy. The New Testament does not introduce the Incarnation, that moment when Christians believe that God entered into the historical timeline as a man, in a vague way — as in, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” — but with a historical precision that is worth noting. Indeed, distinguished Cambridge philosopher <a href="https://justinbrierley.beehiiv.com/p/conversion-classicist-reading-greek-new-testament-led-james-orr-christ">James Orr</a> came to Christian faith precisely because he recognized the historical accuracy of biblical accounts of the birth of Christ. Therefore, if historical accuracy mattered to the writers of the New Testament, then any movie that merits the term “Christian” must display a similar respect for historical truth.
For some, a “Christian” movie encapsulates wholesome content: no sex, no swearing, minimal violence, and no lauding of illegal acts. Think of the kind of movie you can show to your church youth group without concern. There is an obvious logic to this viewpoint. A “Christian” movie is one that Christians will choose to watch, that aligns with their values, and resonates with the kind of lives they are trying to lead. Such a movie might typically show people praying, quoting the Bible, making right moral choices, and seeing the fruits of these choices in greater blessing and flourishing in their lives. Examples of this kind of movie could be the classic 1981 British movie “Chariots of Fire,” or the more recent 2015 sleeper hit “<a href="https://youtu.be/mIl-XY9t_Lw?si=oJsdxUNE4__kV-mS">War Room</a>,” and its 2024 spin-off, “<a href="https://youtu.be/s4aCsaDvagw?si=vtusA_tjskKp9iux">The Forge</a>,” co-written by brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick, both of whom are also pastors.
As popularity for such faith-based movies grows, the big studios have taken <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-xpm-2011-oct-02-la-ca-religious-films-20111002-story.html">notice</a>. The Christian movie company <a href="https://www.affirmentertainment.com/about">Affirm Films</a> was set up in 2007 as a subsidiary of <a href="https://deadline.com/2016/11/affirm-faith-based-label-promotions-sony-1201850273/">Sony</a>, with its stated mission to produce content that “inspires, uplifts, challenges and captivates.” This brings up the question of what is meant by <a href="https://apnews.com/article/faith-religion-films-tv-bible-stories-c53a47a0fb3a5a4020d225a65aac0075">faith-based content</a>, and who the target and actual audiences are for such openly Christian movies. Is it people who already believe, or people who are not sure and need a vision of what the Christian life looks like in real life? If the latter, how accurately can the fictional medium of storytelling replicate reality? 
It is routine for movies with a direct Christian message to be challenged by mainstream movie critics as “preachy.” Another criticism is that they are formulaic and use clichéd tropes. Essentially, critics find such wholesome stories to be boring and unoriginal. It is worth noting that if one did classify as “Christian” only those movies with no bad language, sex, or violence, and which were safe for a church youth group, then the astonishing “Dead Man Walking,” which explores extreme sin, repentance, and atonement, probably would not qualify. 
Another faith-based studio, Angel Studios, which started in 2013 under the name VidAngel, operates independently of an established studio format, preferring to crowdfund its movies. Its breakout film was 2023’s “Sound of Freedom,” based on a true story and starring Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in “The Passion of the Christ.” Yet the success of that movie led to Angel Studios getting sucked into the culture wars, receiving <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240619-christian-studio-eyes-culture-wars-challenge-to-hollywood">criticism</a> that likened the plot to a QAnon fever dream. Controversy notwithstanding, that film’s healthy box office receipts have allowed Angel Studios to break into mainstream movie making. The studio now routinely attracts well-known actors, and its upcoming movie “<a href="https://youtu.be/m8JUmBgHejI?si=SDiDzMp1v1IETQcQ">Runner</a>” features action man of the moment Alan Ritchson with Owen Wilson as the comic relief. 
Amid the rise of films for Christian audiences, there is no definitive answer to what qualifies as a &#8220;Christian&#8221; movie. Unlike, say, action movies or rom-coms, which must follow a generic plot line, what makes a movie “Christian” is surely more personal. For those interested in outside-the-box contenders, though, I have a few.
For starters, “<a href="https://youtu.be/MF7JH_54d8c?si=n5VtwoipA1ZdlaeZ">Casablanca</a>.” Yes, the previous love affair between Rick and Ilsa was adulterous, but neither knew it at the time, so that must surely count for something. Plus, once they realized the truth of the situation, they refused to rekindle their passion. Their selfless choices at the end of the movie — which seem to be pretty accurate depictions of the Pauline concept of “dying to self” — lead to them both having happier and more fulfilled futures than had they furtively run away together. If you are still skeptical, compare “Casablanca” to its hedonistic doppelgänger, “<a href="https://youtu.be/Xk_LRcOFT0c?si=gmnp6TStYCuPJu2T">The English Patient</a>,” in which the lovers choose each other over “doing the right thing,” and everyone dies. Horribly. 
Another movie that gets my “Christian” rating is “<a href="https://youtu.be/Ftkmhs8BEms?si=D6GFOKC1uRWS9_PZ">The Painted Veil</a>.” Again, adultery is the plot twist, but here the selfishness, immaturity, and infatuation that caused it are burned up in a crucible of suffering, leading to our hero and heroine gaining a genuine knowledge of and love for each other, which in turn leads to profound repentance, self-sacrifice, and ultimately self-fulfillment. 
A very different movie that also qualifies is the strange but brilliant “<a href="https://youtu.be/WWoDBcSW4_c?si=AkhBExvq0BEhyHZ8">Moon</a>,” directed by the late David Bowie’s son, Duncan Jones, and starring Sam Rockwell alone in a space station on the Moon. Spoiler alert: Rockwell’s character gradually realizes he is not the human he believes himself to be, but a clone whose function is to supervise the robots and harvesting machines on the space station, which are mining the Moon’s rare minerals and sending them back to Earth. He discovers he can only live for three years before starting to physically degrade, whereupon he will be euthanized and replaced by an identical and equally oblivious clone, who will supervise the mining colony before similarly starting to decompose.
Now why is this one “Christian?” Because just as C.S. Lewis used the artistic medium of sci-fi in his adult fiction series, “<a href="https://transform.westernseminary.edu/resources/cs-lewis-space-trilogy">The Space Trilogy</a>,” to explore man’s relationship to the divine, “Moon” shines a spotlight on the wonder of our human uniqueness. It reminds us that each person is a created being and designed to be fully autonomous, not an anonymous commodity fabricated in a lab for commercial profit. Each time I watch “Moon,” my response is to thank God for giving us humans true freedom, which is something I guess William Wallace from “Braveheart” could understand.
So now, over to you. What do you think makes a movie “Christian,” and what is at the top of your list?
***
Bridget Riley studied modern history at Oxford and completed a Ph.D. in medieval history at the University of Reading. She writes on history, culture, and the philosophy of religion.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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Three Unlikely Films That Carry Surprising Christian Themes

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braveheart

christianity

sound of freedom

Anticipation is growing for The Daily Wire’s newest project, “Run Hide Fight: Infidels,” as the full-length trailer for the film dropped on Thursday.
The subject matter couldn’t be more timely. A follow up to the hit 2020 action film “Run Hide Fight” — which dealt with a school shooting — takes place on a college campus that has been taken over by violent terrorists in a situation that’s chillingly true to life.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sF4OZoLcCD0?si=QgNUsTl-S80SnK2S" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> 
“When radical Islamic terrorists hijack a liberal college’s pro-Palestine encampment to enforce barbaric Sharia law on students and execute infidels in a makeshift caliphate, a ragtag band of red-blooded students, a security guard tired of ‘Uncle Tom’ smears and a Delta Force vet must arm up to save their clueless peers and keep America from surrendering to the enemy on its own soil,” the logline of “Infidels” says.
The full length trailer provides more details about the storyline. In it, Jonathan Majors appears as Captain Clay Saunders, a retired Delta Force soldier who visits a college campus to promote his new book. But the radical Islamic terrorists on campus stage a violent attack &#8211; coopting a hapless group of campus protesters &#8211; to try to stop Saunders from spreading his warning against the rise of Islam in America.
“There are three ways Islam will conquer the West,” Majors says during his campus speech in the trailer clip. “Through immigration, through the wombs of our women, and by using our nation’s freedom against us.”
“What makes them so dangerous? Their goals are not in this life, but the next,” he goes on.
His speech is interspersed with shots of radicals carrying out an attack on the venue. The attendees and Majors are seen fighting back against the terrorists. “Fight back or fall,” the trailer caption says as the heart-pounding drama unfolds.
There’s a shot of an injured pregnant woman, college girls being held hostage by the terrorist ringleader, and bombs being thrown.
But the good guys don’t take any of it lying down. Majors takes charge of the situation, echoing the words of his speech. “We cannot run or hide from what is coming,” he says from the stage. “We have to fight.”
“That’s the American way,” he deadpans while leading the charge against the terrorists.
The film marks a comeback to the industry for Majors. It’s reported to be a return to traditional action-packed storytelling that’s been missing from Hollywood for some time.
Producer Dallas Sonnier revealed a little bit about the inspiration, telling Page Six, “We all worship at the altar of [director] John Milius and Red Dawn. And Eastwood, and all the other wonderful action stars of the ’80s — Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Nobody’s making these types of movies anymore.”
As for the film’s star, Sonnier said, “Majors loved the script, loved shooting the movie, is so great in the film, and he is totally 1,000% behind it.”
“Run Hide Fight: Infidels” debuts on September 16 — only on DailyWire+.

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WATCH: ‘Run Hide Fight: Infidels’ Full Trailer Just Dropped

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run hide fight infidels

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The 1980s were a tamer time for movies. Films rated “R” for extreme content, &#8220;Die Hard&#8221; or &#8220;Flashdance,&#8221; for example, now seem benign when placed alongside the gorefests or sexually gratuitous scenes that are standard fare on today’s large and small screens. However, the Dustin Hoffman movie &#8220;Tootsie,&#8221; given a modest “PG” rating on its release in 1982, now feels shockingly boundary-pushing and transgressive when viewed through today’s culturally charged lens. 
The plot centers on brilliant but struggling New York actor Michael Dorsey, who is too much of a perfectionist to be offered work anymore. As his long-suffering agent, played by the film’s director, Sydney Pollack, warns him: “No one will hire you.” Providing moral support to a friend and fellow actor, Sandy, at her audition for the role of an administrator in a daytime TV hospital soap opera, Dorsey realizes he can simultaneously circumvent his difficult reputation and experience, as he puts it: “one of the great acting challenges an actor could have,” by pretending to be a woman and auditioning for the role. Michael duly becomes “Dorothy Michaels,” wins the part of hospital administrator, Emily Kimberly, and proves an instant hit with the viewers, production crew, and cast members alike. So convincing is he as a woman, the showrunner congratulates him as “the first female character who is her own person.” 
Despite his newfound wealth and professional success, Michael soon comes to realize how stressful being a woman can be. As Dorothy Michaels, he gains a terrifying insight into how women are routinely patronized by their male co-workers or simply ignored. The very title of the movie, &#8220;Tootsie,&#8221; comes from the demeaning term the show’s director uses to address women when he cannot be bothered to remember their names. Casual and sometimes threatening objectifications of women are brought home to Dorsey on numerous occasions. In one particularly fraught evening, the father of an actress he has fallen in love with proposes marriage to him, and upon returning home he is pursued to the point of assault by a male co-star who has stalked him back to his apartment. “This is a nightmare,” he mutters to himself as he tries to get rid of his amorous suitor without blowing his cover. 
Dorsey becomes desperate to leave the soap opera — partly because he cannot handle the exhausting attention “Dorothy” is receiving, and partly because he is falling in love with his beautiful co-star, Julie, who plays a nurse on the show. But his agent tells him he cannot break his contract and confess what he has done. Admitting that all along he was a man pretending to be a woman would be treated by the studio executives as “major fraud.” This declaration alone feels genuinely scandalous to a modern sensibility trained to internalize the mantra “trans women are women” as an unquestionable orthodoxy. The way Dorsey figures out a solution to his predicament — ad-libbing live on camera after a pre-recorded scene has accidentally been wiped — is one of the funniest <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBBPFkMG1hY">moments</a> in the whole movie.
And it is as a screwball comedy rather than social commentary that &#8220;Tootsie&#8221; works best. Not only does the film contain humorous insights into what New York was like in the early 1980s — as, for instance, one character saying it would be cheaper to get mugged than to get a taxi — but the real hero of the film is Dustin Hoffman. The brilliant but impossible Michael Dorsey we see at the beginning of the movie is clearly based on Hoffman himself. By playing off his real-life reputation as a notorious control freak, Hoffman displays remarkable generosity and humility as an actor, disarming the audience from the outset. 
Drawing on what psychologists might laud as the healthy ability to acknowledge one&#8217;s own absurdities, Hoffman plays Michael Dorsey absolutely “straight.” There is no knowing wink to the camera that this is really Dustin Hoffman under the wig, and none of the camp a less confident actor might have reached for in his depiction of Dorothy. That earnestness, paired with his evident willingness to mock his own reputation, establishes a safe, playful tone that allows the movie&#8217;s satire to grow organically without feeling mean-spirited. It is from this foundation that the film&#8217;s comedy of gender errors can flourish. 
None of this is to say the film asks us to excuse the men who patronize or endanger women. The director who can’t be bothered to learn a woman’s name is condescending, not confused. The co-star who follows Dorsey home and won’t leave is not a hapless victim of crossed signals; he is, by any reasonable measure, committing sexual assault. That Michael is genuinely rattled by it, entirely unprovoked as it is, tells you how little he understood before he had to live it, and it&#8217;s one of the film’s sharpest jokes at male expense.
Yet the film&#8217;s brilliance lies in its recognition that men and women are bound to disappoint each other and that a healthy society must learn to accommodate that awkward reality. While Michael Dorsey witnesses the ugly side of male chauvinism, he also discovers the impossible, romanticized ideals women harbor about the opposite sex. In a brilliantly comedic reality check, Dorsey, back to being a man, uses his inside knowledge to feed Julie, the actress he has fallen in love with, the exact chat-up line that she had earlier confided in him — while thinking he was Dorothy — was her dream for how a man would approach her. Far from sweeping her off her feet, the line freaks her out, and she throws a drink in his face.
It is a hilarious reminder that human beings rarely match the fantasies we project onto them. A mature culture doesn&#8217;t respond to this inevitable gap between expectation and reality with outrage. It accepts that romantic and social interactions are a messy business where we must learn to forgive each other’s inevitable shortcomings.
This is a skill a healthy society still needs alongside its capacity to name real wrongdoing because most of daily life isn&#8217;t made up of &#8220;Tootsie&#8221;-grade sexism but of much smaller frictions: the clumsy joke, the misread cue, the tactlessly phrased opinion. For those types of interactions, a functioning, pluralistic society relies on an unwritten social contract: the presumption of good faith, sometimes called the benefit of the doubt. Civil society flourishes not because people stop making mistakes, but because a healthy culture defaults to reading most missteps as foolishness rather than malice.
This presumption of charity is the bedrock of social trust. It acts as a buffer against paranoia and lets people speak, collaborate, and navigate their differences without constant fear of social excommunication. Naturally, bad characters exist; some people are genuinely manipulative or worse. But a society that structures its everyday norms around the worst of its members, rather than its ordinary ones who are all too capable of daily disappointments and calumnies, ends up asking everyone to live in a permanent defensive crouch.
There is a reason everyone who meets Dorothy Michaels falls in love with “her.” Dorothy is patient, unflappable, endlessly wise about other women’s problems and without appetites or wounds of her own, the ideal of a woman precisely because she is a performance, not a person. Michael is talented but insufferably arrogant, capable of friendship and ruthless exploitation in the same afternoon. Julie is warm and funny but dragging the wreckage of a messy love life and a habit of choosing men who treat her badly. Neither of them is anyone&#8217;s fantasy. What &#8220;Tootsie&#8221; understands, and what a culture chasing moral perfection keeps forgetting, is that real intimacy is only available to people who can tolerate the whole, flawed picture of somebody else, essentially the version of them that lets you down and misjudges the moment. Dorothy can be loved by everyone precisely because she is unreal. Loving an actual person is a harder and far more interesting kind of work.
The film&#8217;s real gift, then, is not naivety about human nature but proportion in how we respond to it. By letting us laugh at how men and women clumsily relate to each other, the film treats indignity as something survivable, even comic, rather than a mortal wound. It reminds us that a mature response to the disappointments of the opposite sex is neither to pretend them away nor to let them become the only thing that ever happened to you, but to meet them with the resilience to make sure they don’t get the last word. In a world obsessed with phantom standards of perfection, the messy, frustrating reality of genuine human relationships offers a more satisfying reward.
***
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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What A 1982 Comedy Teaches Us About Men And Women

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gender roles

opinion

tootsie

“The Odyssey” New York Premiere

‘The Odyssey’ Was Even Worse Than I Expected. Here’s Everything Wrong With It.

christopher nolan

Ellen Page

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zendaya

Barker Coogler

Hollywood’s Gatekeepers Lost Their Grip. Young White Directors Are Back.

Backrooms

Curry Barker

hollywood

Movies

Obsession

Ryan Coogler

Some belated sequels crash and burn on arrival. Think “Zoolander 2,” “Blues Brothers 2000,” “Terminator: Dark Fate” and “Independence Day: Resurgence.”
All duds or box office disappointments.
“The Devil Wears Prada 2” won’t suffer that fate, despite the 20-year gap between the two films. In fact, the sequel might mimic another recent blockbuster that lured women back to theaters in droves.
The 2023 smash “Barbie.”
That film wasn’t just a box office juggernaut. It convinced women to dress up in the grand Barbie tradition to enjoy the experience with their best gal pals. It became a cultural flashpoint, a chance to bond over childhood memories and sisterhood.
Will “Prada 2” be a spiritual sequel to that mega-hit?
<div id="attachment_1076167" style="width: 399px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1076167" class="size-large wp-image-1076167" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Prada-2-389x576.jpg" alt="Photo by 20th Century Studios/20TH CENTURY STUDIOS - copyright: 2026 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved. IMDB." width="389" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Prada-2-389x576.jpg 389w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Prada-2-202x300.jpg 202w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Prada-2-768x1138.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Prada-2-1037x1536.jpg 1037w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Prada-2.jpg 1086w" sizes=" (max-width: 389px) 100vw, 389px" />Photo by 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.</div>
The safest bet is “absolutely.” Box Office Pro predicts the sequel will <a href="https://www.boxofficepro.com/long-range-forecast-may-box-office-kicks-off-with-the-devil-wears-prada-2-animal-farm-hokum/">land in the $80-95 million range</a>, a hefty debut for a comedy. Word of mouth might do the rest.
For contrast, the original scored $27.5 million over a Fourth of July weekend.
Why the optimism? Let’s start with the film’s first teaser, which didn’t share much in its brief running time. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMd1at7OwiE">under-60 second</a> clip became last year&#8217;s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2025/12/24/anticipated-sequels-and-remakes-dominated-the-years-most-watched-movie-trailers/">most viewed trailer</a>, more than sneak peeks at “Sinners,” “Superman” or “A Minecraft Movie.”
That’s despite the original film’s solid but hardly massive $124 million at the U.S. box office (globally, it brought in a hefty $323 million). Yet we had to wait 20 years for a sequel, despite the rising star status of featured players Anne Hathaway (as put-upon assistant Andy) and Emily Blunt as the exasperated Emily.
A new Fandango poll shows “Prada 2” as <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DW4NzTbCZfA/">the third most anticipated film of the summer</a>, behind “Toy Story 5” and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day.”
The sequel reunites them with Oscar-winner Meryl Streep as the venomous Miranda Priestly and Stanley Tucci. The May 1 release finds Miranda struggling to keep up with the digital age, something that wasn’t a major issue in the original yarn inspired by Lauren Weisberger’s bestselling novel.
<div id="attachment_1076173" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1076173" class="size-large wp-image-1076173" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Prada-2-1-864x576.jpg" alt="Photo by 20th Century Studios/20TH CENTURY STUDIOS - copyright: 2026 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved. IMDB." width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Prada-2-1-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Prada-2-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Prada-2-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Prada-2-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Prada-2-1-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Prada-2-1-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Prada-2-1.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Photo by 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved. IMDB.</div>
The marketing team behind the sequel is keeping most of the details under wraps, a wise move.
The sequel does expand the original cast, adding Kenneth Branagh, “Bridgerton’s” Simone Ashley, Lucy Liu, Justin Theroux, B.J. Novak and Pauline Chalamet.
So why is “The Devil Wears Prada 2” not a sign of Hollywood desperation but a sly acknowledgement of what audiences crave?
Some movies simply grow over the years, boosted by streaming access and stories that speak to something profound within us.
The technology in the original “Prada” may be dated — remember that screeching pager tune whenever Miranda needed Andy’s help? The themes, by contrast, are timeless.
“The Devil Wears Prada” nailed the hopes and dreams of young women who flirt with a brand of fame that can be intoxicating. Andy didn’t care about fashion until she worked within the industry 24/7. And, when she got her hands on some of the clothes collecting in her company’s closet, she was hooked.
And she looked fabulous.
Audiences got lost in Andy’s “Pygmalion”-like makeover. We’ll look past the running gag that Andy was both frumpy and overweight at the film’s start. Hathaway has always been lithe and lovely.
<div id="attachment_1076201" style="width: 879px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1076201" class="size-large wp-image-1076201" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Prada-2006-869x576.jpg" alt="Copyright: TM and2006 Twentieth Century Fox. All rights reserved." width="869" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Prada-2006-869x576.jpg 869w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Prada-2006-300x199.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Prada-2006-768x509.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Prada-2006-1536x1019.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Prada-2006.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 869px) 100vw, 869px" />Copyright: TM and2006 Twentieth Century Fox. All rights reserved.</div>
And as much as the Left wants to deny biology, women by and large want to look beautiful in the best fashions possible. It’s why those “Sex and the City” films featured Carrie Bradshaw luxuriating in that monstrous, overstuffed closet.
It’s pure escapism.
Plus, we’ve all had bosses as demanding as Streep’s Miranda Priestly, even if they couldn’t chill us with one withering look. Yes, she was a monster, but who couldn’t admire her drive, talent and ruthless efficiently? It helped that Streep’s performance epitomized the power of the softly spoken villain.
She could destroy someone with a lifted eyebrow or well-manicured insult. The fact that Andy survived her chronic attacks, growing stronger by the day, proved intoxicating.
And then there’s poor Adrien Grenier. He played Hathaway’s frustrated beau in the original film, but he won’t be back for an encore. Could the <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/morganmurrell/anne-hathaway-responded-devil-wears-prada-nate-theory">negative memes</a> around his character be to blame? Or the fact that Grenier opted out of Hollywood, Inc. in the intervening years following his “Entourage” closeup?
That’s showbiz. So is Hollywood’s occasional ability to give audiences what they want. Yes, the industry will crank out woke reboots and insult audiences when they’re summarily rejected.
See “Starfleet Academy” for Exhibit A.
Nostalgia still sells, and movie studios know it. The original “Prada” arrived at a time when culture war battles didn’t distract us from our daily lives. The film lacked the gerrymandered diversity casting we too often see today.
No lectures. No “you go, girl” feminist talking points to stop the movie cold. Andy struggled with being Miranda’s assistant, but her intelligence and wit eventually made her an invaluable part of the Runway magazine team.
But did she sell her soul in the process? Her beau thought so, but audiences had her back from start to finish.
And they’ll have it again soon enough.
<div id="attachment_1076185" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1076185" class="size-large wp-image-1076185" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2270419682-864x576.jpg" alt="SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - APRIL 08: Meryl Streep attends &quot;The Devil Wears Prada 2&quot; Seoul Premiere at Times Square on April 08, 2026 in Seoul, South Korea. (Photo by Han Myung-Gu/WireImage)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2270419682-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2270419682-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2270419682-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2270419682.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Han Myung-Gu/WireImage</div>
The film is guaranteed a big opening weekend, but the only way to dampen the box office potential is to lean into Hollywood’s worst impulses. Identity Politics. Speeches. Political asides that erupt out of the blue.
Or, the film’s stars will use “Prada’s” publicity tour to politicize the film. Streep is already attempting just that by <a href="https://radaronline.com/p/meryl-streep-slams-melania-trump-controversial-jacket/">insulting fashion icon turned First Lady Melania Trump</a>.
Some movies are critic-proof. “The Devil Wears Prada 2” is both critic and culture war proof, assuming Hollywood can get out of its own way.
* * *
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic, and editor of <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>.

“The Devil Wears Prada 2” Press Conference & Seoul Premiere

Why ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ Could Succeed Where Woke Hollywood Keeps Failing

box office

entertainment

Meryl Streep

The MCU is yesterday’s news. The NCU, or Nintendo Cinematic Universe, is just beginning.
Ever since Robert Downey Jr. tinkered with that iron suit back in 2008, Marvel movies have dominated Hollywood. “Iron Man” changed the movie-making landscape. In recent years, however, superhero romps no longer light up the box office like they once did.
Even “Superman” <a href="https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2025/10/8/report-superman-box-office-isnt-the-success-warner-bros-claimed">struggled to turn a profit last year.</a>
Meanwhile, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” spun from Nintendo’s beloved video game franchise, could <a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/news/super-mario-galaxy-movie-biggest-opening-day-2026-1236705460/">make $180 million (or more) in its opening weekend.</a>
Video game movies are having a moment, and Hollywood won’t be the same moving forward.
<div id="attachment_1072101" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1072101" class="size-large wp-image-1072101" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2268776924-864x576.jpg" alt="KYOTO, JAPAN - MARCH 28: Chris Meledandri, Jack Black and Shigeru Miyamoto pose for a photo as Universal Pictures, Nintendo and Illumination present the premiere of &quot;The Super Mario Galaxy Movie&quot; at Minamiza Theater on March 28, 2026 in Kyoto, Japan. (Photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images for Universal Pictures, Nintendo and Illumination)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2268776924-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2268776924-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2268776924-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2268776924.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images for Universal Pictures, Nintendo and Illumination</div>
The superhero film genre may have run its course organically, but Hollywood hastened its decline. The genre peaked with 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame,” which made an astonishing $2.8 billion worldwide.
It’s been downhill ever since, with MCU gatekeepers injecting girlbossery and DEI platitudes into the saga. That helped crush “The Marvels” and “Eternals,” while slowing the MCU’s winning streak.
Even respectable entries like last year’s “Thunderbolts” and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” proved financially underwhelming, at least by previous standards.
So Hollywood needed another source of IP (Intellectual Property) gold. Why not video games? Well, Hollywood had tried that repeatedly, often with ghastly results.
Think 1993’s “Super Mario Bros.,” a colossal misfire starring John Leguizamo and Bob Hoskins, 1999’s “Wing Commander” bust, and even 2005’s “Doom” with Dwayne Johnson.
<div id="attachment_1072117" style="width: 405px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1072117" class="size-large wp-image-1072117" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-55990924-395x576.jpg" alt="BERLIN - OCTOBER 24: Actor Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson gestures during a photo call for his newest movie &quot;Doom&quot; on October 24, 2005 in Berlin, Germany (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)" width="395" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-55990924-395x576.jpg 395w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-55990924-206x300.jpg 206w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-55990924.jpg 702w" sizes=" (max-width: 395px) 100vw, 395px" />Andreas Rentz/Getty Images</div>
More clunkers? The 2005 catastrophe “Alone in the Dark” and 2003’s “House of the Dead,” both courtesy of hack auteur Uwe Boll.
Something was missing, be it A-list actors, competent directors, or the kind of FX to pull off the visually impossible.
Slowly, Hollywood began treating video game adaptations with a critical element — respect. The 2018 film “Rampage” wasn’t a sensation, but by then Johnson was a star attraction, and the film’s budget gave it the gravitas the source material required.
The 2021 comedy “Free Guy” cast likable Ryan Reynolds as an NPC (non-player character) in way over his head. The film packed big laughs with video game elements to the tune of $331 million worldwide.
Reynolds may be gently progressive off-screen, but he knows how to put on a show without pushing Heartland viewers away. Few actors can match his marketing savvy.
The “Sonic the Hedgehog” films, based on the Sega speedster, have all made serious coin, aided by slick video game elements and the unchecked Id of star Jim Carrey.
<div id="attachment_146292" style="width: 544px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-146292" class="size-full wp-image-146292" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/09/Jim-Carrey.jpg" alt="Jim Carrey attends the LA special screening of Paramount's &quot;Sonic The Hedgehog&quot; at Regency Village Theatre on February 12, 2020 in Westwood, California. (Photo by Rich Fury/WireImage via Getty Images)" width="534" height="314" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/09/Jim-Carrey.jpg 534w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/09/Jim-Carrey-300x176.jpg 300w" sizes=" (max-width: 534px) 100vw, 534px" />Rich Fury/WireImage via Getty Images</div>
Another secret to video game movies’ recent success? Respecting the audience. These films haven’t pushed a progressive agenda on unsuspecting audiences. No lectures, unnecessary woke asides, or clunky identity politics casting.
Even <a href="https://deadline.com/2025/08/snoop-dogg-scared-movies-grandchildren-same-sex-disney-pixar-lightyear-1236497251/">Snoop Dogg can watch these mostly PG-friendly films</a> with his grandson.
The new wave of video game-inspired films, while far from artistically relevant, cater to fans via Easter Eggs and other source material nods. And, when the fans speak, they listen.
Recall the outrage over the character design shown in the initial “Sonic the Hedgehog” teaser from 2019. <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/sonic-hedgehog-release-delayed-fan-outcry-1213486/">Fans mocked the FX</a> behind the titular hero, and the studio quickly addressed the matter by tweaking the film.
That probably cost a pretty penny, and it pushed the release date forward several months. The results spoke for themselves. The film earned $148 million in the U.S. alone and sparked a new franchise.
A fourth “Sonic” film will <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/sonic-4-amy-rose-hammer-sequel-production-hedgehog-1236519779/">debut next year</a>, adding A-lister Kristen Bell to the saga (her voice, to be precise).
Video game adaptations were suddenly vital, but they still couldn’t approach MCU-like box office grosses. Then along came “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” in 2023. That animated romp rang up $1.3 billion at global theaters, cementing video game movies as the new Hollywood drug.
The industry couldn’t get enough, and that was before “A Minecraft Movie” debuted two years later. That film, starring Jack Black and Jason Momoa, earned $424 million stateside and nearly $1 billion globally.
<a href="https://deadline.com/2026/03/minecraft-movie-2-cast-kirsten-dunst-1236760538/">A sequel is in the works</a>. Of course.
<div id="attachment_906779" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-906779" class="size-large wp-image-906779" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-11-Apr-2025-03-17-PM-8107-1024x576.jpg" alt="Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Sebastian Hansen in ‘A Minecraft Movie’. Photo by Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures/Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures. Copyright 2025 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved. IMDB." width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-11-Apr-2025-03-17-PM-8107-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-11-Apr-2025-03-17-PM-8107-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-11-Apr-2025-03-17-PM-8107-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-11-Apr-2025-03-17-PM-8107-1536x865.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-11-Apr-2025-03-17-PM-8107-2048x1153.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures. Copyright 2025 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. IMDB.</div>
That film’s “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/movies/chicken-jockey-minecraft-movie.html">chicken jockey</a>” sequence sparked a viral video sensation. Not only were Gen Alpha types seeing the film in theaters, but they went cartoonishly wild during that farcical moment.
Suddenly, it was cool to be in a theater again. Hollywood is now paying full attention to a competing media landscape, and many more video game adaptations are on the way. This May brings us “Mortal Kombat II,” while a “Resident Evil” reboot by “Weapons” director Zach Cregger is coming in September.
Bigger titles abound in 2027, including “The Legend of Zelda,” “Call of Duty,” and “Elden Ring.” Any one could spark a new film franchise. Maybe all three will do just that.
The potential seems endless, at least for now. The same once could be said for superhero movies given the endless amount of source material, but the MCU is so desperate for a cultural reboot that it reunited virtually every hero under the sun for December’s “Avengers: Doomsday.”
Can that film light a fire under the Men in Tights genre anew? Or have video games taken the box office crown and won’t give it back?
Movies are a natural fit for video game adaptations, but the small screen is also seeing a benefit. Hit shows like HBO Max’s “The Last of Us” and Prime Video’s “Fallout” show how games can also inspire TV sensations.
The video game manufacturers couldn’t be happier about the Hollywood synergy. It’s boosting both <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/tv-adaptations-video-games-new-players-1236372468/">game awareness and sales</a>, meaning these companies will gladly sell the film and TV rights to their properties … for the right price.
It’s one Hollywood studios will gladly pay.
* *
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic, and editor of <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>.

Super Mario Bros

The Next Box Office Boom Is Here And It Looks Nothing Like Marvel

Marvel

Nintendo

Video Games

We’ve seen this playbook before.
Hollywood went all-in on behalf of illegal immigration over the past decade. Documentaries. Feature films. TV show plots. The messaging proved consistent and one-sided.
We need open borders, even if they never said those words aloud.
Now, Hollywood is tag-teaming more specifically against ICE and any attempt to arrest illegal immigrants. And if what’s past is prologue, reality will prove superior to Hollywood fiction.
<div id="attachment_1067967" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1067967" class="size-large wp-image-1067967" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2266673336-864x576.jpg" alt="HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 15: Malgosia Turzanska, pin detail, attends the 98th Oscars at Dolby Theatre on March 15, 2026 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2266673336-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2266673336-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2266673336-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2266673336.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Mike Coppola/Getty Images</div>
First, a quick review of how aggressively Tinsel Town promoted the open-border madness under Democrats.
Take Fox’s hit series “Party of Five.” The show centered on a tight-knit family surviving after the loss of their parents. The 2020 reboot on Freeform followed a similar storyline, except the parents in question were deported to Mexico.
And, yes, the messaging was as heavy as possible. Newsbusters dubbed the pilot episode pure “<a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/lindsay-kornick/2020/01/08/illegal-immigrant-party-five-reboot-whats-matter-country">parody</a>,” while the saga got a jump on the current anti-ICE mania.
HBO uncorked not one but <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/hbo-torn-apart-liberty-open-borderstorn-apart/">two open-borders documentaries</a> in 2019, and the titles spoke volumes — “Torn Apart: Separated at the Border” and “Liberty: Mother of Exiles.”
More examples? The final season of “Orange Is the New Black” <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/open-borders-hollywood-immigration/">pushed family separation plot lines</a>, while the villain in the third “Descendants” film for kids tried to ban immigration. 
Selena Gomez used her clout to promote the docuseries “<a href="https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/selena-gomez-netflix-docuseries-1203338879/">Living Undocumented</a>.”
<div id="attachment_1067903" style="width: 799px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1067903" class="size-large wp-image-1067903" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1178702372-789x576.jpg" alt="LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - OCTOBER 02: Rosario Dawson (L) and Selena Gomez attend the LA Screening for Netflix Doc Series &quot;Living Undocumented&quot;, produced by Selena Gomez at Netflix Offices on October 02, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Netflix)" width="789" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1178702372-789x576.jpg 789w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1178702372-300x219.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1178702372-768x561.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1178702372.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 789px) 100vw, 789px" />Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Netflix</div>
Subtle? Hardly. And what happened next?
Donald Trump got re-elected by promising to slam the southern border shut. And when he did just that, by sheer coincidence, America celebrated its <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/murders-plummet-crime-trends-2025/">lowest national murder rate in more than a century.</a> 
Hollywood’s all-powerful messaging machine had failed. So why not try it again, but this time directly targeting ICE?
It started with “One Battle After Another,” a cinematic love letter to violent revolutionaries. Leonardo DiCaprio played a stoner rebel cosplaying as an anti-ICE warrior. His fiery gal pal (Teyana Taylor) was the real deal, using any means necessary to free illegal immigrants and attack U.S. officials.
Films take much longer than TV shows to produce and release, but writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson somehow grasped his industry’s zeitgeist with Kreskin-like accuracy.
Just days ago, Hollywood gave it the Best Picture Oscar.
<div id="attachment_1067923" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1067923" class="size-large wp-image-1067923" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2268276413-864x576.jpg" alt="LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 25: Noah Wyle and Harriet Rose speak onstage during the Q&amp;A for 'The Pitt' to celebrate the launch of HBO Max at Rosewood London on March 25, 2026 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for HBO Max)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2268276413-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2268276413-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2268276413-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2268276413.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for HBO Max</div>
TV show productions happen faster, allowing small screen scribes to indoctrinate on demand. That allowed HBO’s hit series “The Pitt” to pick up the “OBAA” propaganda baton. A second season story arc follows an illegal immigrant being treated for a shoulder injury in the show’s Pittsburgh emergency room.
The ICE agents are portrayed as aggressive and unfeeling, while patients and workers alike recoil at their presence.
<div id="attachment_1067931" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1067931" class="size-large wp-image-1067931" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/The-Pitt-II-1024x576.jpg" alt="Source: HBO Max/The Pitt" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/The-Pitt-II-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/The-Pitt-II-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/The-Pitt-II-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/The-Pitt-II-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/The-Pitt-II.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Source: HBO Max/The Pitt</div>
Then, according to The Hollywood Reporter, <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/the-pitt-ice-episode-scott-gemmill-interview-1236514931/">things get personal</a>:
<blockquote>…at the end of the episode, nurse Jesse (Ned Brower) gets detained for stepping in to protect the patient when the ICE agents get too aggressive.</blockquote>
Over at CBS, the “Matlock” reboot <a href="https://www.primetimer.com/features/matlock-season-2-episode-9-matty-s-high-risk-collateral-move-leaves-julian-with-the-ultimate-truth-bomb">concocted its own anti-ICE narrative</a>. An episode dubbed “Collateral,” during the show’s second season, finds Kathy Bates’ character defending a client detained by ICE agents. That bleeds into a larger story with both the client and his family trying to stay in the country despite their illegal status.
The government’s “deal” is cruel, including a demand that the client pay up to $6 million in restitution with zero path to citizenship. Boo! Hiss!
Meanwhile, the just-released second season of “Daredevil: Born Again” tackles ICE in a less heavy-handed, but equally negative fashion. The villainous Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio), now the Big Apple&#8217;s mayor, begins rounding up citizens without due process. That’s been the Left’s battle cry against ICE arrests across the nation.
<div id="attachment_1067935" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1067935" class="size-large wp-image-1067935" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2267624335-864x576.jpg" alt="Vincent D'Onofrio at the &quot;Daredevil: Born Again&quot; Season 2 Launch Event held at Drai's Supper Club New York on March 23, 2026 in New York, New York. (Photo by Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2267624335-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2267624335-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2267624335-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2267624335.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images</div>
D’Onofrio’s character is an obvious stand-in for President Donald Trump, or at least the cartoonish version Hollywood holds dear.
The show’s creative team has been coy about any real-world comparisons, but that may be a case of artists trying not to steamroll a show that hasn’t lit up the ratings world upon its belated return.
“Daredevil: Born Again” co-star Michael Gandolfini didn’t follow that advice. He <a href="https://x.com/Variety/status/2036625364890628459?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2036625364890628459%7Ctwgr%5E22e967c30af443b7a7cea49a0a08d23ed1a607a0%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hollywoodintoto.com%2Fcolberts-lord-of-the-rings-gig-reveals-ugly-hollywood-truth%2F">praised his show</a> for speaking, wait for it, truth to power.
<blockquote>We do a lot of safe things in film now. To do something risky that says something is rare.</blockquote>
More shows will likely follow. These stories aren’t isolated incidents. Late-night TV hosts routinely rage against ICE efforts in their monologues. 
NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” has done the same via its <a href="https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/snl-slams-ice-weekend-update-1236640253/">Weekend Update faux news desk</a>.
<blockquote>“I get that ICE agents are people, allegedly, and they have a job to do. But at some point while you’re pepper-spraying old ladies or shooting at a nurse, do you ever stop to ask yourself, ‘Are we d*cks?&#8217;”</blockquote>
Stars have been raging against all things ICE from their favorite bully pulpits — <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/celebs-slam-ice-independent-spirit-awards-2026-1236506162/">awards season stages</a>. &#8220;White Lotus&#8221; alum Natasha Rothwell expressed her feelings at the recent Spirit Awards:
<blockquote>I’m gonna go to the prompter, but I just want to say, ‘F*** ICE.&#8217;</blockquote>
“ICE Out” buttons have been the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/entertainment/celebrities/2026/03/15/ice-out-ceasefire-pins-2026-oscars-photos/89172466007/">fashion accessory of the season</a> at these events, and stars have used their red carpet remarks to blast any attempt to uphold the law.
Just don’t expect any shows reflecting heinous illegal immigrant murders, like the deaths of Laken Riley or Sheridan Gorman. Nor will a star or starlet name-drop either victim as they collect their new shiny trophies.
Their names won’t be found on any chic Hollywood buttons, either.
The facts behind their tragic deaths are chilling and undeniable, but they’re inconvenient to the narrative in play. And Hollywood is all about narratives, especially the fictional ones.
* * *
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic, and editor of <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>.

“Daredevil: Born Again” Season 2 Launch Event

Hollywood’s Biggest Shows Have A New Propaganda Mission: Eliminate ICE

Hollywood Keeps Pushing This Narrative But Ignores What Follows

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Celebrities

Democrats

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Leftists

television

The following is an edited transcript excerpt from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mks-ep-1935-sub?elementPosition=7&amp;row=6&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Michael Knowles Show</a>.
* * *
Val Kilmer is dead. Hollywood now wants to put him in another movie anyway.
Not through footage he had already completed. Not through a role he finished before his death. Through artificial intelligence.
We are told this is a tribute. It is not a tribute. It is necromancy.
Yes, necromancy. And no, that is not just a melodramatic way of saying I dislike the technology. Taking a dead actor, reconstructing his face and voice with AI, and then putting words in his mouth is not ordinary filmmaking. It is an attempt to conjure a human presence from beyond the grave. Not the man himself, of course, but his image, his shade, his likeness. That is exactly what makes it so grotesque.
I know the objection. No, it’s not. Necromancy would mean literally bringing someone back from the dead. This is just technology. This is just creating an image that looks and sounds like him.
No. That is not really what necromancy has ever meant in practice. 
When people go to a psychic and try to conjure the dead, they are not expecting a flesh-and-blood man to walk back into the room. They expect a voice, a shadow, a movement, a shape, an apparition. They expect an image that gives the illusion of presence. That is what they are after. And that is exactly what this technology offers: not resurrection, but simulation. Not life, but a convincing imitation of it.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mks-ep-1935-sub?elementPosition=7&amp;row=6&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-1054531 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1-1024x171.jpg" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1-1024x171.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1-768x128.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1-1536x256.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1.jpg 1800w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
That is why the distinction does not save it. It condemns it.
A human being is not merely a face, or a voice, or a recognizable pattern of speech. A man is not reducible to a catalog of gestures and expressions that can be fed into a machine and reproduced on command. A man is body and soul. A body without a soul is a corpse. A soul without a body is a spirit. A digital imitation is neither. It is not the man. It is not Val Kilmer.
Val Kilmer lived, and then he died. That is the truth. And when you start creating AI performances that ask audiences to forget that truth, you are doing more than making a movie. You are teaching people to deny death.
That is one of the deepest temptations of modern life. So much of liberal modernity is about denying mortality, denying limits, denying the fixed realities of the human condition. It is about gathering to ourselves powers that do not belong to us. It is about pretending we can master time, history, memory, identity, even death itself. It is about maximizing human autonomy until man no longer receives the world as a creature under God, but tries to re-engineer it as his own private project.
<div id="attachment_1062869" style="width: 893px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1062869" class="size-large wp-image-1062869" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-607408752-883x576.jpg" alt="American actors Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise on the set of Top Gun, directed by Tony Scott. (Photo by Paramount Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)" width="883" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-607408752-883x576.jpg 883w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-607408752-300x196.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-607408752-768x501.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-607408752.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 883px) 100vw, 883px" />Paramount Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images</div>
That is what makes this more than a Hollywood gimmick. This is not just another strange special effect or another morally neutral technological advance. It is part of a much larger effort to flatten reality and replace it with manipulation. It invites us to believe that the dead are not really gone, that personhood is just data, that memory can be commercialized into presence, and that all boundaries exist to be crossed so long as the software is good enough.
And it will get good enough. That is part of the problem. If the technology improves, people will look at that screen and think, on some level, that they are really seeing Val Kilmer. Maybe not literally. Maybe they will know, abstractly, that it is AI. But emotionally, imaginatively, culturally, the effect will be the same. The dead man will appear to live again. And when that happens over and over, decade after decade, it will change the way we think about death itself.
It will teach us that death is not a real rupture, merely a technical inconvenience. It will teach us that the dead remain available for reuse. It will teach us that a person can be broken down into commercially exploitable fragments and then reassembled whenever a studio wants one more performance. That is dehumanizing enough when done to the living. Done to the dead, it becomes something darker.
We should not do this.
There are living actors — plenty of living actors. If you want a performance, go find a living man to give one. If you want to honor the dead, then honor them as dead. Remember them. Pray for them. Be grateful for the work they already gave the world. But do not digitally ventriloquize them and call it art.
And this applies beyond Hollywood. The same impulse that says we should build AI versions of dead actors is the impulse that refuses to accept mortality at all. It is the same impulse that wants to summon, recreate, simulate, and control what ought to be received with humility. It is the refusal to let the dead remain dead, and the refusal to let the living remain creatures rather than aspiring gods.
So no, I do not think this is harmless. I do not think it is merely clever. And I do not think Christians, or anyone with a sane understanding of human dignity, should shrug and accept it as inevitable.
Don’t talk to your dead father as though he were still here. Pray for him. Don’t ask a machine to conjure the likeness of the dead so that you can pretend mortality has no claim on us. Speak to the living. Love the living. Live among the living.
Leave the dead in peace.

“Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” Photocall at the 58th Cannes Film Festival

Why Bringing Val Kilmer Back With AI Crosses A Moral Line

artificial intelligence

death

Michael Knowles

Unknown Man Watching Streaming Service on Smartphone at Home

I Looked Into Why Streaming Became Slop. This is How to Fix it.

Amazon Prime

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Matt Walsh

Movie Theaters

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Lights! Camera! How-dee!
The city of Los Angeles is losing film and TV productions at an alarming rate. That opens up new opportunities for cities to prove that La La Land can hunker down just about anywhere.
Take Nashville, for instance. Other non-L.A. destinations have made their mark as production hubs — think Atlanta, Georgia, and Toronto. Now, it may be Nashville’s turn in the spotlight.
The Tennessee locale is known as a country music Mecca. More recently, it’s welcomed a growing group of filmmakers who clamor for its talented locals, rich cultural history and, yes, a lower price tag than the City of Angels.
Think “9-1-1: Nashville,” Showtime’s “George &amp; Tammy,” Nicole Kidman’s “Holland” and the upcoming “Scarpetta” (Prime Video), Netflix’s “Ruth &amp; Boaz,” and a film opening Feb. 20, “I Can Only Imagine 2.”
<div id="attachment_1047423" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1047423" class="size-large wp-image-1047423" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Nashville-911-864x576.jpg" alt="Ryan Murphy Television. User Error Productions. 20Th Television." width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Nashville-911-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Nashville-911-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Nashville-911-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Nashville-911-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Nashville-911-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Nashville-911-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Nashville-911.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Nashville 911. Ryan Murphy Television. User Error Productions. 20th Television.</div>
The sequel to the sleeper 2018 hit revisits how MercyMe became a Christian music sensation, and the struggles lead singer Bart Millard (John Michael Finley) had following his breakthrough hit.
Co-Founder of Kingdom Story Co. and co-director of the film Andrew Erwin, a pioneer in the faith-based film space, tells The Daily Wire why he tackled the sequel.
“It’s the movie that you didn’t know you needed,” he says. The first film appeared to wrap Bart Millard’s story up, but the singer and his fellow musician Tim Timmons — played by Milo Ventimiglia in the film — suffered subsequent tragedies that made a follow-up film make sense.
<div id="attachment_1047439" style="width: 875px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1047439" class="size-large wp-image-1047439" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Milo-Mercy-Me-865x576.jpg" alt="Photo by Jake Giles Netter/Lionsgate/Jake Giles Netter/Lionsgate - copyright 2026 Lionsgate" width="865" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Milo-Mercy-Me-865x576.jpg 865w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Milo-Mercy-Me-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Milo-Mercy-Me-768x511.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Milo-Mercy-Me-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Milo-Mercy-Me-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Milo-Mercy-Me-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Milo-Mercy-Me.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 865px) 100vw, 865px" />Jake Giles Netter/copyright 2026 Lionsgate</div>
And Nashville has proven to be particularly welcoming to Christian artists. That wasn’t the case back in Los Angeles, Erwin said.
“There’s a group of us that started doing faith stories 15, 20 years ago, and we were all struggling to get our feet under us,” Erwin says. “We could literally end any dinner party in L.A. by saying we were faith film guys. They would instantly get a fake phone call and walk out of the meeting.”
Entertainment culture started to swing in their spiritual direction.
“Something has shifted in the past 10 years, particularly in the last five … there has been an appetite for hope. Stories of faith were considered cheesy. Now, they’re counter-culture, rebellious. It’s kind of punk rock.”
<div id="attachment_1047343" style="width: 394px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1047343" class="size-large wp-image-1047343" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-2261337233-384x576.jpg" alt="NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE - FEBRUARY 12: Andrew Erwin attends the &quot;I Can Only Imagine 2&quot; Nashville Premiere at The Fisher Center for the Performing Arts on February 12, 2026 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images)" width="384" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-2261337233-384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-2261337233-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-2261337233.jpg 683w" sizes=" (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px" />Jason Kempin/Getty Images</div>
What better place than Music City to sing from their storytelling hymnals?
“There’s been a real freedom here,” says Erwin, who even bumps into fellow filmmakers at church. “You don’t have to apologize for us being able to do things that we believe.”
“For whatever reason, a group of actors and writers and directors and producers are all finding (Nashville),” he continues. “I can’t give a reason why … we just feel like we’re supposed to be here.”
“I Can Only Imagine 2” filmed exclusively in Nashville, save a critical sequence shot at Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheater. The veteran filmmaker was initially hesitant to lean so heavily on Nashville, but the film’s team assuaged those fears.
“We had been worried if the crews were strong enough … it was the best crew I ever had … the most cheerful, the most team-oriented, the least amount of divas, blue collar, everything you aspire to,” he says.
He still wants the state to beef up its incentive programs to grow that crew base and keep it steadily employed.
Nashville has an Oscar-winning benefactor on its side: Kidman is eager to make movies closer to her <a href="https://www.realtor.com/news/celebrity-real-estate/nicole-kidman-keith-urban-kids-divorce-custody-home/">Tennessee home</a>. 
<div id="attachment_1047431" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1047431" class="size-large wp-image-1047431" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Kidman-holland-1024x425.jpg" alt="Photo by Courtesy of Prime/Courtesy of Prime - copyright Amazon Content Services LLC" width="1024" height="425" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Kidman-holland-1024x425.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Kidman-holland-300x125.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Kidman-holland-768x319.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Kidman-holland-1536x638.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Kidman-holland.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Courtesy of Prime/Courtesy of Prime &#8211; copyright Amazon Content Services LLC</div>
Plus, newer studio space is helping smooth this transition. <a href="https://www.nashvillescene.com/arts_culture/coverstory/nashville-film-industry/article_b76671a9-cee1-44e5-84cb-6f30cf4fa99a.html">Recent Nashville-area additions</a> include Vu Studios in West Nashville, Worldwide Stages in Spring Hill, and Skyway Studios.
Erick Goss, CEO of the Christian streaming platform Minno, says Nashville has a cultural advantage.
“People recognize there’s a real creative community here in Nashville [already] with Christian and country music, a real appreciation of the arts,” says Goss, who established his kid-focused company in the city seven years ago.
“It’s not like institutions have moved here, but talent has moved here,” Goss says. “It’s different than Seattle or L.A. There’s a real sense of pride and civic nature here … people love what Nashville stands for and want to be a part of it.”
Some pieces of the Hollywood-like puzzle are still missing, he says.
“There are really world-class storytellers here in Nashville. They don’t necessarily have access to capital in the way they need,” he says.
Goss brings a wealth of experience to Minno, including time spent at Amazon and in the U.S. Military. He praises Nashville as having the “highest caliber” of talent he’s seen. What’s missing? Major tech companies that can complement the city’s blossoming production.
<div id="attachment_1047341" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1047341" class="size-large wp-image-1047341" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-2261145346-864x576.jpg" alt="NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE - FEBRUARY 13: (L-R) Tim Timmons, Milo Ventimiglia, Bart Millard, John Michael Finley and Trace Adkins attend Lionsgate's &quot;I Can Only Imagine 2&quot; Night at The Grand Ole Opry on February 13, 2026 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Terry Wyatt/Getty Images for Lionsgate)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-2261145346-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-2261145346-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-2261145346-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-2261145346.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Terry Wyatt/Getty Images for Lionsgate</div>
“What company will aggregate and bring that talent together?” he asks. “We need more talented operators coming into the systems, creating companies that execute really well,” he says, noting that Erwin’s “I Can Only Imagine 2” arrives courtesy of his partnership with Lionsgate, an established film studio.
The key to creating the next L.A.-style production hub is simple, Goss says.
“Get the best projects, the best people, and the best money together. That’s happening. We’re beginning to see these things coalesce [in Nashville],” he says.
Erwin says it helps to believe in both the city and a Higher Power.
“There’s an emboldening that happens when you realize you’re not alone. I can really stay true to the stories I’ve felt called to tell and not have to apologize for it because there are a lot of others who believe what I believe,” Erwin says. “It’s been amazing to see people of faith just find Nashville.”
* * *
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic, and editor of <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
This article has been updated for clarity.

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