Comedian Will Ferrell is probably best known as one of the founders of the Emmy-winning comedy video website Funny or Die and a person who has often portrayed former Republican President George W. Bush in a number of comedy sketches on NBC's Saturday Night Live television series.
However, according to an article posted on the Variety website on Wednesday, the liberal comedian has now set his sights on another former commander-in-chief when he stars in an upcoming film entitled Reagan.
Justin Kroll, a film reporter for Variety, stated that the fictional movie about Ronald Reagan was penned by writer and actor Mike Rosolio and “begins at the start of the ex-president’s second term when he falls into dementia.”
As a result, “an ambitious intern is tasked with convincing the commander-in-chief that he is an actor playing the president in a movie,” Kroll noted.
“The script was so popular following its announcement on the Black List -- an annual catalog of the top unproduced scripts in Hollywood -- that a live read was done in March starring Lena Dunham and John Cho,” he added.
“Ferrell will produce along with production banner Gary Sanchez Productions,” Kroll noted. “The package currently is without a director but will soon be shopped to studios.”
Along with stints on SNL, the comedian took his impression to Broadway during 2009 in the raunchy play You’re Welcome, America: A Final Night With George W. Bush. Later that year, Ferrell made a web ad with other celebrities to promote ObamaCare. That video drew the attention of Cable News Network anchor Wolf Blitzer, who stated:
A few well-known comedians put their talent together to sarcastically portray one of the challenges facing our nation right now. Will Ferrell is among the stars taking a shot at how insurance industry executives handle health care.
During the ad, Ferrell stated that insurance companies “are detail-oriented enough to deny claims for things like typos. If you spell something wrong, do you really deserve surgery? I don’t think so.” It wasn't long before a satirical response was produced claiming: “Something terrible is happening. ... Overpaid celebrities don't have a big enough voice when it comes to health-care reform.”
Cut to August of 2012, when then-CNN anchor Joe Johns interviewed Ferrell – a fund-raiser for President Barack Obama. by the way -- and fellow leftist comedian Zach Galifianakis on the subject of campaign finance reform. The comics cast their liberal quest as “nonpartisan” and a common-sense undertaking.
“[T]he one issue that we feel is pretty nonpartisan is just the massive amounts of money that are flowing into politics right now," Ferrell said.
"We kind of wanted to highlight the money being spent for all this stuff. It's kind of ridiculous," added Galifianakis, who co-starred with Ferrell in The Campaign, a political comedy movie.
On a CBS This Morning program more than a year later, host Jan Crawford boosted the latest pro-ObamaCare campaign from the president's supporters in Hollywood.
She played back-to-back sound bites from liberal comedian Will Ferrell's Funny or Die website and highlighted the list of celebrities who had signed up for the campaign. As part of the story, Ferrell is seen in a video asking sarcastically: “Why is Obama trying to reform health care when insurance companies are doing just fine making billions of dollars of profit?”
Last February, Ferrell joined former President Bill Clinton in encouraging voters in Nebraska to caucus for 2016 Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton even though the comedian had already expressed his support for her opponent, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
Obviously, the Reagan movie is yet another example of liberals in Hollywood attempting to slam conservative Republicans in the hope that movie-goers will accept the flimsy and negative premise of the film.
On the other hand, lefties struggle to defend fellow liberals in the mainstream media, as was done in Truth, a movie that tried to exonerate former CBS newsman Dan Rather even though he said his story on George W. Bush going AWOL while in the National Guard was true even though he had no evidence to support that claim.
