A few weeks ago, President Donald Trump designated Antifa a domestic terrorist organization. Most Americans know Antifa, if they&#8217;re lucky, from news coverage of the chaos it causes driving riots in big cities across the country. 
Ryan Millsap isn&#8217;t one of those Americans. Out of no fault of his own, Ryan found himself neighbors with the terrorist group. 
What started out as an opportunity to make cool movies in a state-of-the-art facility in Georgia turned into a protracted, ad hoc battle with random radicals living in tree houses. 
It’s stories like Ryan’s that expose the very real damage groups like Antifa can do. We&#8217;re proud to have him tell it himself in The Daily Wire. — The Editors.
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The past four years of my life have been a relentless storm of attacks, lies, and betrayal — much of it orchestrated by radical activists who would rather burn down progress than see it thrive.
I never expected to end up in the crosshairs of Antifa, and that&#8217;s an understatement.
As a movie studio owner and real estate developer, I built Blackhall Studios into a cornerstone of Georgia’s film industry, creating jobs and opportunities.
When I entered into a land swap deal with DeKalb County, however, I drew the wrath of Antifa. This was all happening next door to the development of a new Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, that became known to the world as “Cop City.” When Antifa caught wind of the deal, chaos ensued.
This is my story. A story about a battle for a piece of land and for the truth in a world quick to crucify conservatives.
<h3>The Beginning: Building A Legacy</h3>
I wasn’t born into wealth. I made it the American way, with hard work and intelligent risk-taking. Growing up in California, I became a real estate developer and investor.
Following the financial crisis of 2008, I saw a new opportunity to acquire real estate across the Southeast and ended up purchasing over 8,000 apartments. In 2016, I seized on Georgia’s film industry boom, founding Blackhall Studios — an 850,000-square-foot powerhouse facility that helped produce hits like “Jungle Cruise,” “Jumanji,” “Venom,” and “Lovecraft Country.”
My team and I built a reputation of working cross-culturally with the community, hand-in-hand with Black leaders and Jewish colleagues. Through Advance DeKalb, I poured resources into the community, even offering to donate space to healthcare workers during the pandemic.
In 2018, I decided to expand Blackhall. Around the same time, the Atlanta Police Foundation planned a state-of-the-art public safety training facility to make Atlanta safer. The “Cop City” idea — next door to our planned expansion — was meant to train police and first responders to protect communities like DeKalb’s. To make it happen, I struck a land swap deal with DeKalb County: 55 acres of my studio’s land for 40 acres of Intrenchment Creek Park.
At the time, county officials and local leaders enthusiastically backed the deal. The county treated me as a partner, excited for the economic boost.
Then, in early 2021, Antifa showed up.
<div id="attachment_989641" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-989641" class="size-large wp-image-989641" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Cop-protest-II-copy-1024x576.jpeg" alt="Credit: Ryan Millsap" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Cop-protest-II-copy-1024x576.jpeg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Cop-protest-II-copy-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Cop-protest-II-copy-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Cop-protest-II-copy-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Cop-protest-II-copy.jpeg 1658w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Credit: Ryan Millsap</div>
<h3>The Turn: Antifa’s War On Progress</h3>
Hiding behind the “Defend the Atlanta Forest” banner, these “squatters” occupied the property, calling it “Weelaunee People’s Park.” To me, they didn’t appear to be peaceful environmentalists, but anarchists, funded and fueled by Antifa’s network, bent on sabotaging both our development and Cop City.
Their treehouses and protests were just the beginning of the chaos they would unleash. The “squatters’” antics turned violent fast. Rocks and full beer cans were thrown at workers on the site.
Then came the relentless legal battles. In 2020, the South River Watershed Alliance (SRWA) <a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/ga-court-of-appeals/116643343.html">sued me and DeKalb County</a>, alleging the land swap was illegal. Of course, it was not illegal, but abusive litigation is a hallmark of modern leftist terrorists. I filed an affidavit defending the deal, but the county’s response was indirect and they began to backpedal. I believe Antifa’s pressure campaign, with their deep pockets and activist networks, caused officials to abandon me.
Still, I had to fight back. So, I hired contractors and off-duty DeKalb police officers to secure the property. In a heated confrontation in July of 2022, protesters hurled objects at my team. Antifa lit my truck and trailer on fire and turned it into a bonfire of effigy. Then, in October of 2022, activists successfully <a href="https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/anonymous-activist-claims-responsibility-for-blaze-at-dekalb-film-studio-may-this-be-a-warning-to-them">torched</a> Shadowbox Studios (formerly Blackhall).
<div id="attachment_989639" style="width: 778px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-989639" class="size-large wp-image-989639" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Truck-burn-768x576.jpg" alt="Credit: Ryan Millsap" width="768" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Truck-burn-768x576.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Truck-burn-300x225.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Truck-burn-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Truck-burn.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" />Credit: Ryan Millsap</div>
Meanwhile, I faced an onslaught of media attacks and online smears. A former attorney filed a public lawsuit that became fodder for hit pieces in local and national outlets. Social media campaigns — many from self-identified Antifa supporters — accused me of everything from greed to corruption.
I worked hard to protect my family from all the chaos, but my wife bore the brunt of the stress, living under the shadow of Antifa’s harassment and online threats.
<h3>Where I Stand Today: Fighting For Truth</h3>
More than four years later, the 40 acres I still own remain undeveloped, stalled by the prolonged protests, various lawsuits, and political shenanigans.
I sold Blackhall in 2021 to Commonwealth Group, now Shadowbox Studios, and shifted my focus to other endeavors.
Meanwhile, Cop City finally opened, a victory for law and order despite Antifa’s relentless opposition. President Trump himself highlighted the facility at a roundtable with independent journalists, calling out Antifa’s role in the violence against projects like mine. Their funding, likely from shadowy leftist groups, has fueled the chaos, from car burnings to media smear campaigns, all to stop progress.
<div id="attachment_989643" style="width: 875px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-989643" class="wp-image-989643 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2151779643-865x576.jpg" alt="The Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, referred to as 'Cop City' by opponents, under construction in Atlanta, Georgia, US, on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Alexander Cox Taylor runs the family conglomerate, Cox Enterprises Inc., while supporting civic causes in his hometown of Atlanta, including a new $110 million facility to train police and other safety officials. His first cousin, James Cox Chambers Jr., is using his own piece of the fortune to try to shut that very project down. Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images" width="865" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2151779643-865x576.jpg 865w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2151779643-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2151779643-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2151779643.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 865px) 100vw, 865px" />The Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, referred to as &#8216;Cop City&#8217; by opponents, under construction on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images</div>
Through it all, my family has been my rock. My wife, kids, and I have faced these attacks together, though the strain of Antifa’s threats and character assassination nonsense has tested us. I have lost many friendships throughout the city and the world because of this manufactured toxicity. But my faith keeps me grounded, and I’m fighting to protect my legacy for my family and community.
This story isn’t just mine — it’s happening in other pockets of America.
Look at the Dakota Access Pipeline, where <a href="https://northdakotamonitor.com/briefs/north-dakota-us-working-to-settle-in-dispute-over-dakota-access-pipeline-protest-costs/">protests</a> against a $3.8 billion oil project in 2016 led to blockades, sabotage, and over 700 arrests, delaying completion and costing developers millions, all fueled by environmental and indigenous activism that echoed Antifa’s tactics.
Consider Tim Pool, the conservative podcaster who bought a derelict lot in West Virginia in 2023 to <a href="https://x.com/Timcast/status/1900216701108564402">build a skatepark</a> for local youth. His dream of a safe space for skaters to hang out was derailed by over two years of vandalism, gang tags, and anonymous threats, driven by opposition to his right-wing politics. Pool was forced to shut it down in 2025, a loss for the community he aimed to serve.
That’s not activism. That’s sabotage.
<h3>A Call For Courage</h3>
These cases and many others show how Antifa and their allies use funded protests, media hit jobs, digital attacks, and endless lawsuits to grind progress to a halt, targeting conservatives with anything they can manufacture to destroy them.
In sharing my experience, I hope to help expose Antifa’s playbook — using chaos and lies to silence those who dare build or challenge their agenda. It’s a call to stand up to their intimidation and defend the America that values hard work and entrepreneurial life.
The past four years have been brutal. Publicly, I’ve been vilified, my name dragged through the mud by Antifa’s allies in the media. But I won’t let terrorists define me. I’m still here, building, fighting, and believing in a country that rewards grit, intelligence, and an indefatigable spirit. They can burn my cars and spread lies, but they won’t break me, this country, or the truth.
To say that I’m excited that President Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-designates-antifa-a-major-terrorist-organization">designated Antifa</a> a terrorist group on October 7, 2025 after Charlie Kirk&#8217;s death is an understatement. I’ve known this truth for many years. These people hate America, hate Americanism, and want to see every hard-working, red-blooded American subjugated to their chaos. We must not let that happen.
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The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Ryan Millsap is an entrepreneur, investor, and the founder of Atlanta-based Blackhall Studios, the powerhouse production facility behind films like &#8220;Venom,&#8221; &#8220;Jumanji,&#8221; and &#8220;Jungle Cruise.&#8221; A lifelong builder and unapologetic American capitalist, Millsap has spent his career revitalizing communities through real estate, film, and philanthropy. He is also the host of The Blackhall Podcast where he interviews leaders shaping business, culture, and faith. Millsap continues to champion free enterprise, individual liberty, and the unbreakable American spirit from his home in Georgia.
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Activists In NYC Demonstrate Against Atlanta’s Planned “Cop City” Police Training Center

Four Years Under Siege: My Battle Against Antifa And The Chaos That Tried To Break Me

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Suzanne Somers died two years ago, but her husband, Alan Hamel, insists that fans will be able to interact with her again via an AI clone he says is “amazing.”
Hamel and Somers were together for 55 years before she died in 2023 from breast cancer.
“It was Suzanne. And I asked her a few questions and she answered them, and it blew me and everybody else away,” the 89-year-old widower <a href="https://people.com/alan-hamel-suzanne-somers-ai-project-exclusive-11832986">told</a> People of the AI-generated clone meant to resemble his late wife. 
“When you look at the finished one next to the real Suzanne, you can’t tell the difference. It’s amazing. And I mean, I’ve been with Suzanne for 55 years, so I know what her face looks like. When I just look at the two of them side by side, I really can’t tell which one is the real and which one is the AI,” he added.
Hamel went on to explain how he and the developers created the AI version of Somers by using “all of Suzanne’s 27 books and a lot of interviews that she has done.&#8221;
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Hamel also insisted that Somers wanted the project to happen and had discussed it before her passing. 
“It was Suzanne’s idea. And she said, ‘I think we should do that.’ She said, ‘I think it’ll be very interesting and we’ll provide a service to my fans and to people who have been reading my books who really want and need information about their health,&#8217;” he told the outlet. “So that’s the reason we did it. And so I love being able to fulfill her wish.”
People magazine reports that fans will soon be able to interact with an AI version of Somers on her website.
“There’ll be people who will ask her about their health issues, and Suzanne will be able to answer them. Not Suzanne’s version of the answer, but it’ll go directly to the doctor she interviewed for that very issue, so it’ll be coming from an MD,” Hamel said.
“The first time I spoke to Suzanne AI, for the first two or three minutes, it was a little strange,” he added. “But after that, I forgot about the fact that I was talking to a robot and asking her questions and getting answers, and it happens that fast for me, getting used to the whole idea.”
&#8220;I feel really good about being able to deliver what Suzanne wanted and doing so that it&#8217;ll be something that basically will, should, go on for generations. I think our family loves the idea, really loves the idea,” he concluded.

Suzanne Somers

Suzanne Somers AI Clone Debuts Two Years After Her Death

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There’s this mic-drop line in the trailer for Leonardo DiCaprio’s new film, “One Battle After Another”: “It’s not that hard, they/them.” 
When my husband and I heard it in theaters, we couldn’t help but shoot one another a look. We weren’t outraged; frankly, we were exhausted.
That zinger was clearly written to earn brownie points from a woke crowd, but it landed like a prepackaged corporate slogan. Any potential hype from the action movie trailer tanked the way an advertisement does when it tries too hard to sound like a movement.
But that’s where we’re at now. Even Hollywood trailers have a virtue-signal quota that writers type into scripts as proof that the studio has passed ideological inspections.
We’re not the only ones tired of it, apparently, since the whole notion of non-binary identities appears to be collapsing in on itself.
Sociologist Eric Kaufmann recently published data on <a href="https://x.com/epkaufm/status/1978074195767480659">X</a> that went viral, showing that the number of young people identifying as a non-binary “gender identity” — and even those identifying sexually as “queer” — has dropped dramatically.
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1/ NEW: trans identification is in free fall among the young
(h/t <a href="https://twitter.com/fire?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FIRE</a> data in particular) <a href="https://t.co/i0Z1BNcWG8">pic.twitter.com/i0Z1BNcWG8</a>
— Eric Kaufmann (@epkaufm) <a href="https://twitter.com/epkaufm/status/1978074195767480659?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 14, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @epkaufm/X.com
Meanwhile, heterosexual identification quietly, and unfashionably, has seen a rebound.
That’s not political backlash, however. People are fatigued by a fading trend.
For years, “gender identity” meant more than personal exploration. Frankly, it felt like a public performance. The internet made it oh-so-contagious; Hollywood made it fashionable. Then corporations made it profitable.
But the more that identity became a virtue to pander or a brand to adopt, the less authentic it felt.
I can think of no better example than actress and singer Demi Lovato, as her story shows the emotional cost better than any statistic. Her struggles were, as many child stars’ are, very public and very difficult to watch: childhood trauma, addiction, near-fatal overdoses, long stretches of recovery, and then a relapse. But in 2021, amidst all that turmoil, Lovato “came out” as non-binary and deemed her pronouns “they/them.”
At the time, she described her new identity as freeing, one that made sense. But let’s be honest, freedom built on instability isn’t lasting. By the next year, she quietly started using “she/her” pronouns again and told interviewers she had become “exhausted” by constantly explaining herself. Focus on that word. She wasn’t just fatigued by correcting strangers, she was clearly weary of trying to rebuild her life through a faulty label based on fiction.
Kaufmann’s research suggests that Lovato’s identity arc clearly mirrors what’s happening on a larger scale. The boom in “trans” and “non-binary” identifications also happened to coincide with historic spikes in depression, anxiety, and loneliness — especially during COVID-19 lockdowns. But now, as self-reported mental health appears to have improved, those identities appear to be declining.
One may not have directly caused the other, but the overlap is worth pondering. For many, that “non-binary” label could have been a survival mechanism of sorts, a way they could name their inner chaos and get it off their chest in a culture that began looking down on traditional anchors like family and even faith. And once Lovato returned to “she/her,” she signaled to the public she was in recovery. This summer, she even <a href="https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/demi-lovato-s-case-study-and-why-women-are-more-prone-to-mimetic-desire">married</a> her Canadian beau, looking absolutely stunning in a traditional white wedding dress to boot.
<div id="attachment_988273" style="width: 843px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-988273" class="size-large wp-image-988273" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2171634394-833x576.jpg" alt="HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 12: Jordan Lutes and Demi Lovato attend the Los Angeles premiere of Hulu's 'Child Star' at NeueHouse Hollywood on September 12, 2024 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)" width="833" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2171634394-833x576.jpg 833w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2171634394-300x207.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2171634394-768x531.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2171634394.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 833px) 100vw, 833px" />Kevin Winter/Getty Images</div>
Even Hollywood gets the picture that the magic is wearing off. For years, Netflix and other leading platforms turned representation into their marketing strategies. They inserted gender lessons into everything from teen dramas to children’s cartoons.
The 2021 children’s animated show “Ridley Jones,” for example, had a talking bison come out as “non-binary” and ask his grandma to use “they/them” pronouns. The show was “quietly dumped” two years later, as <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11863181/Netflix-quietly-dumps-Ridley-Jones-bison-comes-non-binary-grandma.html">Daily Mail</a> put it, once that novelty wore off.
This show, and many other forms of pandering media, are storytelling failures. Audiences don’t want to watch a sermon or get lectured. They just want entertainment, and they instinctively recognize when something that once felt radical is now conventional.
So, we’re witnessing the rise and fall of a trend cycle. A movement went viral, institutions codified it, corporations co-opted it, and then … many followers moved on. It started as “liberation,” but it became the branding du jour, which always collapses under its own fickle weight.
Between the data points, I see something hopeful happening. People are quietly rediscovering that they don’t need to reinvent themselves to feel or be whole. To them, I say, “Welcome home.”
For years, authenticity was socially measured by how fluid you were willing to be, but now it matters more how anchored you can stay in the storm. We’ve spent a decade being told that “normal” is oppressive, but normalcy is looking hotter than ever.
And maybe people won’t want to admit they were wrong — I get it. No one likes to admit they had it all mixed up. But when my husband and I heard that “mic-drop” in the movie theater, we didn’t react with cynicism. We recognized that culture has reached a point where even the symbols of rebellion have become clichés.
That’s why this new data is less like a regression and more like a release. After years of confusion, people aren’t running backward, I promise. They’re running home to simplicity and to the peace of saying, “I’m fine with being me.”
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Andrea Mew is the managing editor of IW Features, the grassroots storytelling arm of Independent Women, and a contributing writer for Evie Magazine.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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London Premiere Of “One Battle After Another”

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The family of actress Diane Keaton said her cause of death was pneumonia.
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Hollywood is still in mourning for the Oscar-winning actress, who died at the age of 79 on Saturday.
“The Keaton family are very grateful for the extraordinary messages of love and support they have received these past few days on behalf of their beloved Diane, who passed away from pneumonia on October 11,” a statement shared with <a href="https://people.com/diane-keaton-family-confirms-cause-of-death-grateful-support-11828660">People</a> said.
“She loved her animals and she was steadfast in her support of the unhoused community, so any donations in her memory to a local food bank or an animal shelter would be a wonderful and much appreciated tribute to her,” the statement went on.
A source told the outlet that her death was “unexpected” after a rapid decline in her health.
“In her final months, she was surrounded only by her closest family, who chose to keep things very private. Even longtime friends weren’t fully aware of what was happening,” the insider said.
Keaton, who was never married and adopted two children later in life, has been honored by many of her former Hollywood co-stars. Her former romantic partner, Woody Allen, said the world was “drearier” without her in it.
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Keaton had a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/academy-award-winning-actress-diane-keaton-dead-at-79">long career</a> in film and television, making more than 60 films over six decades. In 1968, she was cast as an understudy in the Broadway musical “Hair,” and later appeared in Allen’s “Play It Again, Sam” in 1969.
In the 1970s, Keaton began her rise to stardom with roles in “The Godfather” and “Annie Hall,” another collaboration with Allen, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Of working on “The Godfather,” Keaton told People: “I think the kindest thing that someone’s ever done for me … is that I got cast to be in The Godfather and I didn’t even read it. I didn’t know a single thing. … I just was going around auditioning. I think that was amazing for me. And then I had to kind of read the book.”
Keaton’s most notable roles included parts in “Crimes of the Heart,” “Father of the Bride,” “The First Wives Club,” and “Something’s Gotta Give,” among many others. She also worked in television, with roles in “Mannix” and, more recently, “The Young Pope” and “Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight,” for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award.

Diane Keaton

Diane Keaton’s Cause Of Death Revealed: Family Thanks Fans For Outpouring Of Love

Diane Keaton's Cause Of Death Revealed, Family Thanks Fans For Their Love

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“Roofman” doesn’t look or sound like a faith-based movie.
The film follows a prison escapee named Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum) who hides out in a toy store while wooing a naïve divorcee (Kirsten Dunst). Paramount Pictures isn’t known for producing religious fare, and director Derek Cianfrance made his name with gritty tales like “Blue Valentine” and “The Place Beyond the Pines.”
Plus, it’s based on a true story. Look closer.
The October release focuses on the divorcee’s tight-knit Christian community. The church welcomes Jeffrey, provides him with support, and is portrayed in a uniformly positive light.
As a result, the real-life figures in the Manchester saga, including the woman played by Dunst, have forgiven Manchester for his transgressions. It helps that the character and the real-life criminal aren’t cruel by nature.
He was a kinder, gentler crook, and the film leans into that dichotomy along with some powerful, redemptive arcs. Tatum’s character spends much of his time clowning around inside a Toys &#8220;R&#8221; Us store, chomping candy, and entertaining himself long after the last customer had left the store.
<div id="attachment_985765" style="width: 816px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-985765" class="wp-image-985765 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Roofman.-Tatum.-Parmount-806x576.jpg" alt="Photo Credit: Davi Russo/Davi Russo. Copyright 2025 PARAMOUNT PICTURES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED." width="806" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Roofman.-Tatum.-Parmount-806x576.jpg 806w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Roofman.-Tatum.-Parmount-300x214.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Roofman.-Tatum.-Parmount-768x549.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Roofman.-Tatum.-Parmount-1536x1097.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Roofman.-Tatum.-Parmount.jpg 2000w" sizes=" (max-width: 806px) 100vw, 806px" />Photo Credit: Davi Russo/Davi Russo. Copyright 2025 PARAMOUNT PICTURES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.</div>
That tone and approach to the spiritual themes was by design, according to Cianfrance.
The director tells The Daily Wire he spent roughly 400 hours talking to the real Jeffrey Manchester, a former California U.S. military sergeant, from prison over a span of four years. 
“I wouldn’t have made the movie if I hadn’t been able to talk to him,” Cianfrance said. The Hollywood veteran learned about not just Manchester but the community that took him in during a curious time in his life.
“The pastor had created this ideologized little society. It was diverse. Old people. Young people. Rich people. Poor people. All different races,” said Cianfrance, who grew up Catholic. “They welcomed everyone.”
The director made sure that spirit infused the film, and he acknowledges that Hollywood doesn’t always capture faith in a positive way. That’s being generous.
<div id="attachment_985797" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-985797" class="size-large wp-image-985797" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2238204363-864x576.jpg" alt="LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 29: (L-R) Peter Dinklage, Melonie Diaz, Uzo Aduba, Alissa Marie Pearson, Channing Tatum, Esmé McSherry, Kirsten Dunst, Derek Cianfrance and Kirt Gunn attend the Los Angeles Premiere of Paramount Pictures' &quot;Roofman&quot; at Paramount Theatre on September 29, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Monica Schipper/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2238204363-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2238204363-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2238204363-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2238204363.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Monica Schipper/Getty Images</div>
“In Hollywood movies, they present Christianity or the church, any kind of church, in a very negative light. It’s almost like a punchline, something to satirize … I don’t have that perspective in my heart,” he said.
Manchester’s stint outside of jail allowed him to find a welcoming community, a positive sign in a rather twisted story. “We’re so divided as a society … this movie was a chance for me to shine a light on them.”
He still wasn’t entirely sold on the project at first. On paper, the saga of Jeffrey Manchester seemed too surreal even for a feature film.
The real Manchester robbed his fair share of fast-food joints, but he also extended kindness to the startled employees along the way. An early scene in “Roofman” finds Tatum’s character giving his jacket to a worker who he steered into the restaurant’s cooler so he would stay warm until the authorities arrived to free him.
<div id="attachment_985775" style="width: 816px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-985775" class="wp-image-985775 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Tatum.-Roofman.-Paramount-II-806x576.jpg" alt="Photo Credit: Davi Russo/Davi Russo. Copyright 2025 PARAMOUNT PICTURES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED." width="806" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Tatum.-Roofman.-Paramount-II-806x576.jpg 806w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Tatum.-Roofman.-Paramount-II-300x214.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Tatum.-Roofman.-Paramount-II-768x549.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Tatum.-Roofman.-Paramount-II-1536x1097.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Tatum.-Roofman.-Paramount-II.jpg 2000w" sizes=" (max-width: 806px) 100vw, 806px" />Photo Credit: Davi Russo/Davi Russo. Copyright 2025 PARAMOUNT PICTURES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.</div>
He also had a path to freedom at one point in his journey, according to Cianfrance, but he chose to reunite with someone he met during his prison break instead.
“His humanity made him a less effective criminal,” the director said, and that triggered his creative Spidey Senses. “I asked myself, ‘Is this for real?” That led him to chat with Manchester for hour upon hour, but he still wasn’t convinced.
He had to speak to the people in his life, the members of Crossroads Church whom he bamboozled.
“They validated all of his stories, even the crazier ones,” said the director, implying he left some material out of his script to keep the film credible. He expected the church’s pastor, Ron Smith, and Leigh Wainscott to be furious with Manchester’s deceptions. Their memories of him proved much more complicated and empathetic.
“They were the ones who redeemed him,” Cianfrance said.
Manchester has accepted his fate as an inmate at Central Prison in Raleigh, N.C. He knows he repeatedly broke the law and only disagrees with the length of his sentence, according to Cianfrance. His <a href="https://www.today.com/popculture/movies/roofman-true-story-jeffrey-manchester-rcna236165">release date</a> is December 2036.
Manchester eventually gave “Roofman” and Cianfrance his blessing via their string of phone calls.
“Derek, this is my story, but it’s your movie &#8230; I want you to make your movie,” he recalled.
<div id="attachment_985789" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-985789" class="size-large wp-image-985789" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2239586469-864x576.jpg" alt="NEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 06: Channing Tatum and Derek Cianfrance visit the SiriusXM Studios on October 06, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2239586469-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2239586469-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2239586469-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2239586469.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Cindy Ord/Getty Images</div>
The director’s film came in with a <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/box-office-jared-leto-tron-ares-1236397724/">$19 million budget</a>, a small sum for an industry struggling to share original stories untethered to established IPs. That made its modest $8 million opening frame acceptable by industry standards.
What Cianfrance finds unacceptable is the sudden, shocking threat AI poses to his industry.
“Writing is hard &#8230; staring at a screen and not knowing [what to write]. It’s the struggle where you find the journey, the process of writing that I love,” he said. “It’s not about getting it right or finding the solution.”
“I embrace the mistakes not the perfection,” he continued. “I think what makes us all unique is not how perfect we are, it’s our flaws. The human flaws can’t be replicated by AI.”
* * *
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.

Variety Cover Party Presented By RBC At RBC House, Toronto International Film Festival 2025

Director Derek Cianfrance On ‘Roofman’: A True Story Of Faith Hollywood Rarely Tells

Director Derek Cianfrance On 'Roofman': A True Story Of Faith Hollywood Rarely Tells

Channing Tatum

Movies

Paramount

Academy Award-winning actress Diane Keaton has passed away at the age of 79.
A cause of death was not immediately made known, and her family have asked the public for privacy, according to <a href="https://people.com/diane-keaton-dead-oscar-winning-actress-dies-at-79-exclusive-8603118">People</a>.
Keaton had a long career on film and television &#8212; though her earliest roles were on stage. In 1968, she was cast as an understudy in the Broadway musical “Hair,” and after that, was cast in Woody Allen’s “Play It Again, Sam” in 1969.
It was the 1970s when Keaton began her rise to stardom with roles in “The Godfather” and “Annie Hall,” another collaboration with Woody Allen, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Of working on &#8220;The Godfather,&#8221; Keaton told <a href="https://people.com/movies/diane-keaton-never-read-the-godfather-before-auditioning-exclusive/">People</a>: &#8220;I think the kindest thing that someone&#8217;s ever done for me &#8230; is that I got cast to be in The Godfather and I didn&#8217;t even read it. I didn&#8217;t know a single thing. &#8230; I just was going around auditioning. I think that was amazing for me. And then I had to kind of read the book.&#8221;
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Keaton’s famous filmography included roles in “Crimes of the Heart,” “Father of the Bride,” “The First Wives Club,” and “Something’s Gotta Give,” among many others. She also worked in television, with roles in “Mannix,” and more recently “The Young Pope,” and “Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight,” for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award.
Keaton also starred in Justin Bieber&#8217;s music video for &#8220;Ghost,&#8221; which was the only music video she ever participated in.
Though Keaton never married, she leaves behind her adopted children Dexter and Duke.

Academy Award-Winning Actress Diane Keaton Dead At 79

At just nine years old, John O’Leary laid in a hospital bed covered in bandages, burned on every inch of his body. His parents prepared for the worst as doctors gave him a one percent chance to live. But O’Leary didn’t die — and decades later, the boy who was never expected to live grew up to teach millions how to appreciate the lives and circumstances they were given.
O’Leary’s extraordinary story is hitting the big screen this week as Sony’s “Soul on Fire” heads to theaters. The emotional film tells the true story of how he survived a catastrophic house fire and went on to become a bestselling author and speaker.
Directed by Sean McNamara (“Reagan,” “Soul Surfer”), the movie is based on O’Leary’s memoir “On Fire: The 7 Choices to Ignite a Radically Inspired Life” and was filmed in St. Louis at the real-life locations where his story unfolded.
O’Leary said during an exclusive interview with The Daily Wire that, in his opinion, the most impactful aspect of the film was its authenticity. 
“The entire thing was shot on location where it happened,” he said. “When you see the home where little John was burned or eventually comes home to, that’s my mom and dad’s house.” And while that dramatic scene is likely to impact audiences, it’s not the one O’Leary points to as the most emotional to watch for him.
The most powerful scene for O’Leary was a recreation of his real wedding day. “That’s the church where John and Beth married,” he said. “In the second row behind John Corbett and Stephanie Szostak are seated my actual mom and dad.”
His father, who had Parkinson’s Disease for decades, hadn’t been able to stand for years. “But in that scene, when Sean yelled action, this warrior pulls himself up,” O’Leary said. “He is immortalized in film, upright, smiling, and stoically celebrating his son’s life.”
O’Leary’s story began when he survived that devastating house fire that left him with burns on 100% of his body. He made a remarkable recovery thanks to the steadfast support of his family, community, and faith, including an unlikely friendship with Baseball Hall of Fame announcer Jack Buck. 
That experience shaped his lifelong mission to help others find purpose and possibility in the face of hardship. It’s a mix of realism and grace that defines both O’Leary’s story and the movie that seeks to capture it. 
When asked what he hopes people will understand about the reality of suffering, he answered bluntly: “You can’t run from it. I think you embrace it instead.” 
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Soul On Fire - Official Trailer" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CslVGLETWps?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The author and public speaker credits his mother, who “seemed to almost rejoice in pain and suffering,” for shaping that outlook. She forced him to confront life’s hardest questions directly. “Do you want to die? Do you want to return to life?” she asked him early on. “It wasn’t about the piano,” he said of her teaching him to play again. “It was about living. It’s about agency. It’s about potential. And I would have chosen none of that on my own, but my incredible mother instilled it in me and still does.”
That inner strength became the foundation for everything that followed. “We were going to live,” he said. “We didn’t know how long it would take, but we knew the outcome.”
When asked if he wishes the accident had never happened, O’Leary said, “You would not want to go through this again for a million reasons,” he said. “You don’t want to go through five months in the hospital… and you don’t want to go through a lifetime with scars.” 
But time, faith, and perspective have changed how he sees the painful struggles of his past. 
“I’m married to a stunningly beautiful woman in no small part because of this story. I’m animated and active in my faith because of this story,” he said. “Ease will never bring you courage. It’s only in the struggle we discover our bravery.”
He distilled the message of the movie into one word: “Love.” But not the sentimental kind. 
“It’s a verb that puts you into motion to serve someone bigger than yourself,” he said. “The only non-hero in the entire film is John O’Leary. Every single other person steps up, models love, and in doing so changes this person’s life.”
One line that O’Leary’s father repeats throughout the film is, “I love you. There’s nothing you can do about it.” 
“It’s the greatest quote because right now we live the exact opposite,” he said. “I love you if… is the way most of us go through life. My dad went through life the exact opposite. I love you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
That kind of clarity about love, faith, suffering, and eternal gratitude is what “Soul on Fire” exemplifies. It doesn’t do so in a sentimental way, but rather in a gritty, real-world example of how beauty can blossom even from the most difficult circumstances. It takes the countercultural stance that a hard life can be a great life, and that even when it’s very difficult, life is always worth living.
“Soul on Fire” hits theaters nationwide today.

Soul on Fire

New Film Challenges A Culture That Fears Suffering, Finds Beauty Through Pain

'Soul on Fire' Challenges A Culture That Fears Suffering, Finds Beauty Through Pain

Mainstream critics have been falling all over themselves to praise the political action thriller “One Battle After Another,” but their fawning hasn’t been enough to help the film break even at the box office.
Many conservatives balked at the storyline, especially as instances of real-life violence against federal immigration agents continue.
“One Battle After Another” stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Bob Ferguson, a former far-left revolutionary living off-grid in a state of stoned paranoia, but he is forced to return to his old lifestyle when his daughter disappears. Bob teams up with his old crew of comrades to save his daughter and the world from a cabal of right-wing antagonists portrayed as racists. The leftists resort to violence in their mission, raising questions about whether their actions reflect genuine heroism or simply serve as a vehicle for political messaging.
The film is loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland, per <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-15175073/leonardo-dicaprio-one-battle-woke-flop.html">The Daily Mail</a>.
Director Paul Thomas Anderson, an 11-time Oscar nominee, went all in with the budget, spending a whopping $175 million to bring the story to life. But so far it’s only earned back $100 million and came in second place last weekend behind Taylor Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl: The Official Release Party.”
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“This movie has a chance of getting to profitability if it lasts long enough in theaters and/or overperforms abroad,” David A. Gross, head of box office intelligence firm Franchise Entertainment Research, <a href="https://variety.com/2025/film/box-office/box-office-one-battle-after-another-opening-weekend-leonardo-dicaprio-1236533304/">told</a> Variety.
“It&#8217;s going to get a lot of award nominations, but that&#8217;s two to three months away and unlikely to help this immediate release,” he added.
This is despite “One Battle” having a 95% critical rating and 85% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. While major critics gush that the movie “represents a cinema of big swings and bold statements,” many conservatives are saying it’s just more left-wing propaganda from Hollywood. 
“You can make excuses for it, but basically the [film is] an apologia for radical left-wing terrorism, that’s what it is,” Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro said, also predicting it will win “all the Academy Awards” because of who it presents as heroes and villains.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Ben Shapiro Reviews One Battle After Another" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/F8Y68-mfTiA?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
“It has the subtlety of a brick … The basic suggestion is a conspiracy theory in which the United States is run by white supremacist Christian nationalists and all people of color and a few nice incompetent fellow travelers like [DiCaprio’s character] are going to take on that entire system,” Shapiro went on. 
“And that system must be taken on at the cost of family, at the cost of friendship, at the cost of decency, at the cost of basic human capacity for success. It is better, in other words, to be a complete loser who wastes your life bombing things randomly in order to free illegal immigrants to run willy-nilly across the border than to be a productive citizen.”

One Battle After Another

Leo’s Latest Is A Woke Fever Dream – And A Box Office Nightmare

Ben Shapiro

Box Office

Leonardo DiCaprio

Politics

The very first thing I did after watching the trailer for a new documentary on John Candy was send it via text to my sister. She was at work, but I knew she would reply. The expected response came in just a few minutes.
“Why would you do this to me?”
She didn’t have to explain that she was sitting at her desk crying. I had done the same minutes earlier.
There’s no doubt that producer Ryan Reynolds and director Colin Hanks created “John Candy: I Like Me” — which premieres on Amazon Prime this Friday — to have this exact effect on adults who grew up watching Candy-led comedies. I was still young enough when he died of a heart attack in 1994 not to understand the depth of the entertainment world’s loss. 
But now I’m older and well-versed in the comedies currently being churned out in Hollywood. There’s a reason why, even when faced with an endless list of options on Netflix on a Friday night, I’m a lot more likely to select “Uncle Buck” for the umpteenth time than I am to pick a movie made in the last decade. 
It’s the same reason that my kids know our agenda for Thanksgiving Eve every year: a screening of “Planes, Trains, &amp; Automobiles.” Pass the popcorn. “Those aren’t pillows!”
It’s been three decades since Candy’s unexpected death at the age of 43, and people have been moved by this trailer because we desperately miss men like him in modern Hollywood. Candy was not a perfect person. But he was a genuine person — &#8220;a real one,&#8221; as the kids would say. That’s one trait that Hollywood&#8217;s been missing for decades.
The documentary, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) last month, left audiences laughing and crying because it showcased a rare kind of entertainer: a man who was funny without being cruel, warm without being fake, and, most impressively, talented without having an ego. 
He made the world laugh while making everyone feel totally at ease. Who else can say they’ve done that?
My sister and I were crying because to us, Candy reminds us of our own father — big, funny, mustachioed, often a little embarrassing, but with a huge heart. For everyone else, the Canadian star felt like a father figure, no matter what their actual dads looked or sounded like. He was America’s dad. We felt like we needed to protect him, and now that he’s gone, it’s his legacy that’s earned our fierce sense of loyalty.
That’s the magic of John Candy. In a business that rewards arrogance, he stood apart with the humility of someone who remembered where he came from. 
Steve Martin once <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/steve-martin-tears-doc-recalling-142346260.html">said</a> Candy was “very sensitive and very complex and we really loved each other,” while Catherine O’Hara <a href="https://ruralradio.com/rrn/abc_news/stars-remember-john-candy-on-the-30th-anniversary-of-his-death-abcide22dd96c/#:~:text=Schitt's%20Creek%20Emmy%20winner%20Catherine,had%20that%20kind%20of%20swagger.%E2%80%9D">promised fans</a> he was “just as lovely as you’d want him to be.” That authenticity is what audiences connected with then, and it’s what will resonate all over again through the documentary.
It’s proven by how many of Candy’s former co-stars, even big-time players, were willing to participate in the project even three decades after his death. 
Martin, O’Hara, Bill Murray, Martin Short, Macaulay Culkin, Mel Brooks, and Dan Aykroyd all appear to share stories of their late co-star.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="John Candy: I Like Me - Official Trailer | Prime Video" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PrcQRsrBcCk?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
“I can’t tell you what was right about John Candy, or what was wrong. But he was my friend,” Murray says in the trailer. “And … I don’t wanna cry, but when you see him, when you see his face….” he adds, trailing off as he begins tearing up.
What makes the documentary especially powerful is how much of it comes through the perspective of Candy’s children, Jennifer and Christopher. 
“He was the best dad,&#8221; Jennifer told Today. &#8220;He’d say, ‘Don’t worry what people think about you. Just be your authentic self.’”
That’s advice you’d expect from a counselor, not necessarily from one of the most famous comedians on the planet. But that was Candy through and through, exhibiting a tenderness at home that matched the sorts of people he played in movies.
In another moment, Jennifer reflected on stories of how her father looked out for young actors, including Culkin, who had a difficult relationship with his own father. 
“When we hear about Macaulay Culkin, that doesn’t surprise me because that’s who our dad was,” she explained. “He wasn’t going to just kind of ignore a kid because he was a kid actor and he was moving on to something else. It’s like he genuinely wanted to know.” 
The documentary doesn’t appear to shy away from Candy&#8217;s own struggles. He wrestled with anxiety, stress, and the pressure of constantly being “on.” The actor was complex, flawed, and human, which was part of what made him so likable. 
That duality is part of what audiences adored. He could play the bumbling uncle, the earnest underdog, or the unlikely leader of a Jamaican bobsled team. Through it all, he made you believe in human goodness. 
Candy’s characters reflected who he was: a decent person with a good heart. That’s what people connected with in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and it’s what people are craving again as Hollywood continues to lose the plot.
Reports from TIFF describe the documentary receiving standing ovations, laughter, tears, and an overwhelming sense of nostalgia, not just for Candy, but for what he represented. The actor is being celebrated as a Canadian treasure, but Candy’s impact was always bigger than just one country. He was the rare celebrity who transcended the usual divides because his brand of humor and humanity wasn’t political, it was universal. 
Everyone could laugh with John Candy. Everyone could feel like they knew him.
That’s the secret to his enduring legacy. We live in an era where comedy is floundering, unfunny, and usually exhaustingly partisan. Candy’s work is a reminder that humor can be wholesome without being boring, that kindness can be funny, that the best comedians are just out there being themselves.
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“John Candy: I Like Me” isn&#8217;t just a chance to revisit his greatest hits. It&#8217;s an opportunity to introduce new generations to a man who changed comedy for the better. And it will be a reminder for the rest of us of what we’ve lost in Hollywood.
He wasn’t perfect, but he was rare. That’s why John Candy mattered then and why he matters now. Even though this documentary is going to be a real gut punch, it will hopefully also be a harbinger of things to come. 
As for my sister and me, we’re getting the tissues ready.

John Candy

John Candy Is Not My Father, But His Comedies Feel Like Home

Comedy

Robin Williams’ daughter is begging fans to quit sending her creepy AI-generated videos that digitally resurrect her father.
The famous actor and comedian died by suicide in August 2014. 
Zelda Williams, a 36-year-old filmmaker, made the remarks via Instagram Stories.
“Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad,” she <a href="https://variety.com/2025/film/news/robin-williams-daughter-ai-recreations-gross-1236541633/">wrote</a>. “Stop believing I wanna see it or that I’ll understand, I don’t and I won’t. If you’re just trying to troll me, I’ve seen way worse, I’ll restrict and move on. But please, if you’ve got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone even, full stop. It’s dumb, it’s a waste of time and energy, and believe me, it’s NOT what he’d want.”
She continued, blasting the hollow imitation of AI-crafted versions of real people.
“To watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to ‘this vaguely looks and sounds like them so that’s enough’, just so other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop puppeteering them is maddening,” she continued. 
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“You’re not making art, you’re making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings, out of the history of art and music, and then shoving them down someone else’s throat hoping they’ll give you a little thumbs up and like it. Gross.”
Zelda wrote in a follow-up that AI is “badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be consumed. You are taking in the Human Centipede of content, and from the very end of the line, all while the folks at the front laugh and laugh, consume and consume.”
The filmmaker previously spoke out against the use of her father’s voice for AI in October 2023, as The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/robin-williams-daughter-says-using-ai-to-mimic-his-voice-is-personally-disturbing">reported</a>.
“I am not an impartial voice in SAG&#8217;s fight against AI,” Zelda wrote at the time. “I&#8217;ve witnessed for YEARS how many people want to train these models to create/recreate actors who cannot consent, like Dad. This isn&#8217;t theoretical, it is very very real.”
She said it was “personally disturbing” to hear artificial intelligence mimic her father’s voice.
“Living actors deserve a chance to create characters with their choices, to voice cartoons, to put their HUMAN effort and time into the pursuit of performance,” Zelda continued. “These re-creations are, at their very best, a poor facsimile of greater people, but at their worst, a horrendous Frankensteinian monster, cobbled together from the worst bits of everything this industry is, instead of what it should stand for.”

Robin Williams Zelda Williams

Robin Williams’ Daughter Begs Fans To Stop Sending Creepy AI Videos Of Her Dad

Tongues are wagging over Apple TV+ benching “The Savant,” a new series following a hate-crime specialist tracking evil white men.
The Jessica Chastain vehicle was slated to debut on September 26. Now? There’s no new release date set. Why the dramatic move? Apple won’t exactly say, but many have suggested that the show features a Charlie Kirk-like figure painted in a negative light.
Well, we’ve seen the show’s first four episodes, and here’s the ugly truth. The series is ripped from a progressive’s fever dream, a tale completely disconnected from today’s headlines. Far from being awash in right-wing violence, we’re seeing the Left rise up in repulsive fury, from the assassination of Charlie Kirk to repeated attacks on ICE facilities and officials. And let’s not forget not one but two assassination attempts on Donald Trump.
Even The Atlantic and <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/09/28/left-wing-terrorism-far-right-violence-research" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Axios</a> begrudgingly admit political violence is now a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/09/charlie-kirk-left-wing-terrorism/684323/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Left-leaning problem.</a> So does <a href="https://x.com/SenFettermanPA/status/1972331631622185255" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman.</a>
That makes “The Savant’s” release problematic, to use the Left’s vernacular.
Chastain plays Jodi Goodwin, an anti-hate specialist going digitally undercover to smoke out a network of white racists. She’s supposed to be so good at her job that she’s nicknamed The Savant. But really, she just knows how to use Google and impersonate a racist online.
She also poses as someone who happily rapes innocent women to impress would-be collaborators. The first few episodes find Jodi trying to earn the trust of a white supremacist (Pablo Schreiber) gathering a team to commit future violence.
We’re also shown many budding white supremacists glued to their phones to get their latest marching orders.
“The Savant” checks plenty of identity politics boxes. Our heroine is in an interracial marriage. Her boss, played by Michael Patrick Thornton, uses a wheelchair (as does the actor off-screen). Her good friend (Dagmara Dominczyk) is a lesbian about to have her first child with her partner. We even get a brief lecture on climate change. The far-left Southern Poverty Law Center, which <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-slams-splc-labelling-094021230.html?guccounter=1&amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAF9fz-2bDSEpBRzMDd4UR-7ykCkPfQfpu70OuyRrt3j4byjEGiYJ3tGZZOMNgKx5mQICLWu2lzofdi-_5RFeduexyS7EZfd74zFjiJkwBUN-GTzEmNG613Ev4_ZAoYBEHxv4XH70AONldMD0nHVsHaRm4uZa-6iw905c5TO7gsOH" target="_blank" rel="noopener">targeted Turning Point USA</a> in recent years, also gets a shout-out.
The villains, of course, are uniformly white. They hate Jews, illegal immigrants, and people of color. They’re also not very bright, trusting people outside of their inner circle in ways that could easily lead to trouble.
Jodi’s choice of subjects is odd for someone trying to stop violent attacks across America. Has she read the news lately? Heck, you could write a whole season focusing on academia’s radical, pro-Palestinian movement or Antifa. Alas, the first four episodes of the eight-part series show nothing beyond evil white supremacists.
Of course, Hollywood would never make a story implicating progressive radicals. With few exceptions, celebrities won’t even bring up academia’s ghoulish Hamas-friendly protests.
“The Savant” isn’t tagging the on-screen villains as conservatives, per se. There are no sucker-punch style markers like red MAGA hats or Ted Nugent concert tees. Party labels aren’t included here, either, and Jodi’s husband (Nnamdi Asomugha) is an active military member. That restraint is surprising, but audiences will connect enough dots on their own.
This isn’t the first time Hollywood has had second thoughts about releasing violent content due to current events. The 2020 film “The Hunt” got bumped based on its incendiary subject matter and recent mass shooting headlines around its initial 2019 release date. The film followed a band of progressive elites hunting conservatives for sport.
The actual film wasn’t as bombastic as that plotline suggests, finding fault on both sides and attacking our growing partisan fury. It proved controversial enough to coax Universal to delay its release, and President Trump’s <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2020/03/10/the-hunt-controversy-explained-why-trump-hates-this-movie/5003993002/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">comments</a> on the film fanned the flames.
More recently, Comedy Central <a href="https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/charlie-kirk-south-park-pulled-comedy-central-1236515229/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pulled a recent episode</a> of “South Park” satirizing Kirk. The late conservative icon had seen the show in question and praised it, proving he had a better sense of humor than his critics imagined.
Some media outlets did the ol’ “just asking questions” bit regarding “The Savant’s” benching, suggesting fear of President Trump forced Apple to delay the show’s release. That came after media outlets falsely blamed the president for removing Jimmy Kimmel from his ABC late-night perch.
There’s zero proof of that, but the chin-stroking speculation happened all the same. Here’s Variety, admitting it’s <a href="https://variety.com/2025/tv/columns/apple-postponing-savant-charlie-kirk-huge-mistake-1236527471/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">making up the Trump connection</a> in its opening paragraph.
In a shocking decision, Apple TV+ has postponed the premiere of the Jessica Chastain drama series “The Savant,” offering another chilling example of how business giants are running scared of the Trump administration, and bowing to pressure before it even exists [emphasis added]. The series had been scheduled to premiere on September 26.
Maybe we need a series about serial media malfeasance. That could be released on virtually any date these days and retain its relevance.
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.

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We Watched AppleTV+’s Cancelled Political Drama. It’s Clear Why They Pulled It.

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Charlie Kirk

Political Violence

Television

Actress and activist Jane Fonda has coined a new slogan for her Hollywood &#8220;resistance&#8221; group — and it just so happens to share its initials with cable news giant CNN.
Fonda joined CNN anchor Dana Bash on Thursday to promote the newly relaunched Committee for the First Amendment — a group that was first formed in the 1940s as a backstop against McCarthy-era blacklists in the entertainment industry. Henry Fonda, Jane Fonda&#8217;s late father, was one of the group&#8217;s original members.
&#8220;No president has ever sent troops into the Democratic cities across the country saying full force,&#8221; Fonda said. &#8220;No president, as far as I know, has tried to control the Federal Reserve, the central bank. He is amassing power in a way that will destroy our democracy. And so we‘re going to stand up. We‘re creatives. We‘re storytellers. We can do it creatively. We can have a good time while we do it.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Jane Fonda: I’ve come up with a slogan for our Hollywood resistance group that uses the acronym &#8216;CNN.&#8217;
Dana Bash: We’ll take it!
Jane Fonda: Good. I knew you would.
This is CNN. <a href="https://t.co/2nUnZMMNYa">pic.twitter.com/2nUnZMMNYa</a>
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) <a href="https://twitter.com/WesternLensman/status/1973435532459044936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 1, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Our statement is, &#8216;When they come for one of us, they come for all of us&#8217; — Oh! I thought of this last night,&#8221; Fonda said. &#8220;We&#8217;re going to engage in Creative Non-violent Non-cooperation. CNN.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;ll take it,&#8221; Bash replied.
&#8220;Good, I knew you would,&#8221; Fonda added, and they both laughed.
The actress confirmed that she had bigger plans in the works, saying that she also planned to create a PAC and encourage like-minded candidates to run for office.
&#8220;We‘re going to have a good group, and we‘re going to have fun doing it,&#8221; Fonda said. &#8220;But I also have a PAC, a climate PAC that elects people all over the country because I don‘t feel that our leaders are doing what they need to do. And if you can‘t change the people, change the people. That‘s what we‘re doing,&#8221; she said.
The group, according to its <a href="https://www.committeeforthefirstamendment.com">website</a>, has already ballooned into the hundreds — from show-runners and directors to A-list actors and musicians — all of whom who are ready to &#8220;stand together in defense of our constitutional rights.&#8221;

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