‘Divisive’ Civil War movie declares victory at the box office as liberal states give RAVE reviews amid fears of political violence
Liberal concerns about the schisms in American politics have made Alex Garland’s thriller film Civil War one of the biggest Hollywood hits of the year.
The British-born director has explicitly avoided conventional fault lines, portraying California and Texas as allies against a dictatorial president from an unnamed party who has won himself a third term.
But the vision of a US ravaged by armed militias and torn by war has drawn four times as many liberals to the theaters as conservatives as it became the biggest R-rated opening of the year so far.
The film, starring Kirsten Dunst, made $25.7 million in its first weekend after being released on Friday, the anniversary of America’s first Civil War, and is being dismissed by some for coinciding with one of the most charged election years in history .
“The title alone is enough to start a conversation in a year when political discourse is at a premium,” said Paul Degarabedian, media analyst at Comscore. “And they couldn’t have picked a better date.”
Kirsten Dunst, 41, stars as a journalist who travels through a divided country where a three-term president is battling separatist forces from California and Texas
The film earned $25.7 million in its first weekend, becoming the biggest R-rated opening of the year to date
“I think a civil war is just an extension of a situation,” director Alex Garland, 53, told The New York Times. ‘That situation is polarization and the lack of limiting forces on polarization’
Dunst, Wagner Moura and Cailee Spaeny star in the near future as journalists on the front lines during the final days of an American civil war, as the rival armies approach Washington DC.
According to the plot, more than a dozen states have seceded from the union, but the reasons are not given and the doctrines of the rival factions are kept deliberately ambiguous.
“It was a delicate balance,” Garland said.
‘The plan is to make a compelling and engaging film, and the product of the compelling and engaging film is a conversation.
“So the questions are: How do you make sure you don’t dismantle a conversation in the first part of that equation?”
Despite his efforts, it seems the conversation is being heard mostly on one side of the divide, with 19 percent of viewers saying they are Democrats and six percent Republicans.
The Comscore survey also found that 22 percent described themselves as liberal and only five percent as conservative.
Garland has admitted that he viewed the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol as a “disgrace,” and many viewers have claimed that his attempt to walk the line between America’s polarized communities has not worked.
Nick Offerman stars as a ‘fascist’ president who has given himself a third term in office
Kirsten Dunst stars as a veteran photojournalist who tries to secure an interview with the President as rebel armies close in on the White House
The $50 million film shot in Georgia is studio A24’s most expensive production to date
Garland deliberately tried to create confusion among the audience as to who was fighting whom
Cailee Spaeny and Jesse Plemons in one of the film’s most heartbreaking scenes
“The plan is to make a compelling and engaging film,” Garland said. ‘And the product of the compelling and engaging film is a conversation
Civil War takes the form of a road movie: a suitcase full of journalists driving from New York City to their date bound for Washington, DC
“Really baffled by all the talk about Civil War – a movie where one side is clearly The Bad Guys and led by clearly Republican fascists and white nationalists – if anything it’s apolitical because it clearly isn’t!” tweeted Brendan Hodges.
“The new Civil War film conditions propaganda,” Jonee Fry added. ‘The radical left paw prints are all over this.’
“If you want to see a Trump analog tarred and feathered in a movie, just say so,” Vyce Victus added.
Garland, who is also the creator of Ex Machina and Annihilation, has said that the premise of the film is that there is a “fascist president who kills his own citizens.”
“What happened next is that two states that are in different political positions say we are more concerned about a fascist, violent president destroying the Constitution than we are about political differences.
“When things collapse, the speed at which they collapse tends to surprise people, including people like intelligence officers whose job it is to watch and predict when these things will happen.
‘Things are always in a slightly more dangerous state than they appear.
‘Its consequences are so serious that not taking the threat seriously would in itself be a form of madness. It would just be complacent.”
The film received its largest audiences in LA, San Francisco, DC, Phoenix, Austin and San Diego.
But it also turned out to be hot in smaller red state cities, including El Paso and Waco, Texas, Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, New Mexico and Charlottesville, Virginia.
The $50 million budget film is the most expensive, made by studio A24 and shown on 3,838 screens in the US and Canada.
Dunst was at the special screening in Los Angeles at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
According to industry analyst David A. Gross, revenues are more than twice the average for a dystopian thriller during its opening weekend.
Such films “are typically set in futuristic worlds that look very different from contemporary life,” Gross said.
‘The civil war does the opposite: it seems that way now. The film bends the genre into something contemporary and recognizable.’
But the director has certainly failed so far to transcend one of the most pronounced divisions among American moviegoers, with men making up more than 70 percent of the audience.