Hollywood loves ripping stories straight from the headlines.
Law & Order thrives on this approach. Matt Damon’s Stillwater recycles the tragic tale of Amanda Knox. Showtime’s The Comey Rule essentially retold a media narrative we watched in real time over the past few years.
These stories offer details so rich, so ripe, they all but beg to be turned into Hollywood content.
And then there’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s precipitous fall.
The New York Democrat resigned this week following charges he sexually harassed nearly a dozen women. One year ago, the media and Democrats suggested Cuomo could fill in for Joe Biden should the then-77-year-old falter during the presidential campaign.
Cuomo pandemic press conferences, filled with his Pacino-like bluster, sparked a wave of “Cuomosexuals.” He even nabbed an Emmy award for his “performances.”
The New Yorker didn’t take over for Biden as some predicted, but he penned a book about his pandemic leadership and played the perfect foil for President Donald Trump.
It all collapsed on him this month, culminating in his defiant resignation speech.
The Cuomo story begs for the Hollywood treatment.
- Sex
- Death
- Power
- Media manipulation
- Corruption
Need more dramatic elements for Andrew Cuomo: The Movie?
Try his behind-the-scenes bullying, accusations he hid damning COVID-19 data and how he steered the most vulnerable among us into nursing homes, killing thousands in the process.
Democrat. Liberal. Conservative. Independent. Who wouldn’t be curious about a dramatized version of Cuomo’s rise and fall? Actors would line up to play Gov. Cuomo.
Just don’t hold your breath waiting for Hollywood to make such a story.
The Cuomo debacle paints the media and Democrats in a very bad light. How did his inner circle protect him for so long? Why did journalists ignore the conservative media’s reportage on Cuomo’s failings for nearly a year? Why didn’t fellow Democrats pick up the “believe all women” mantra and demand, en masse, his resignation?
Hollywood comes off badly, too. Why did so many stars flock to his side after most knew of his horrible handling of nursing homes? Janice Dean waged a one-woman war on Cuomo after she lost both of her in-laws to the pandemic, courtesy of Cuomo’s negligence.
It was impossible to miss her messaging on the subject.
Who would play Dean in a Hollywood production? Don’t answer that. It’s not happening anytime soon.
Hollywood would rather memory hole the entire Cuomo debacle than relive it on a small or big screen. NBC is doing its part, apparently. The network just hid Jimmy Fallon’s fawning Cuomo interview from the public’s eye.
The industry loves re-telling real-life stories that shame the GOP, though.
How many Watergate-themed stories have we seen over the past 40-odd years, unofficially started with 1976’s All the President’s Men? We’re getting more, and soon, courtesy of HBO’s The White House Plumbers miniseries and Sean Penn’s Gaslit.
It took more than two decades for the first major re-creation of President Bill Clinton’s sex scandal. “Impeachment: American Crime Story,” debuting next month, will focus on both the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Clinton’s impeachment trial from what will likely be a liberal lens.
The production is based on liberal author Jeffrey Toobin’s book, A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President and is produced by progressive activist Ryan Murphy.
Will we see a Cuomo-based movie or miniseries in 20-plus years, too? Or will it take even longer?
[Cross-posted from Hollywood in Toto.]
