Dennis Quaid’s REAGAN Biopic Might Release This Fall
By Movieguide® Contributor
Director Sean McNamara is hoping to release his Dennis Quaid-led biopic about Ronald Reagan later this year.
REAGAN “has been a years-long process in bringing the project to the big screen,” McNamara, a Teddy Bear Award® winner, told the National Review. “Principal photography on the film began in September 2020, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic and a host of other factors, production and post-production took longer than expected.”
“I love Ronald Reagan’s story,” he said, explaining why he wanted to make the movie. “My first job in the business was doing Reagan’s inauguration when I was 18. I’m independent, but he was the first president I voted for in 1980. I loved his common sense and humor.”
REAGAN is “a drama based on the life of Ronald Reagan, from his childhood to his time in the Oval Office.” Along with Quaid, a Teddy Bear Award® winner, the movie also stars Jon Voight as a fictional KGB agent.
According to Newsweek, it’s “a narrative film as opposed to a documentary, is based on two biographical books by Paul Kengor about the deceased former governor of California and 40th president of the U.S. Voight’s character, though, is fictional, used as a device to show Reagan’s impact on world events, including the eventual downfall of the Soviet Union and how nervous he made communists during the Cold War.”
The long production process was largely due to the immense work needed from the visual effects department.
The film’s visual effects supervisor, Scott Colter, told Newsweek, “We had to take 40 years off of Dennis, and that requires painstaking, almost surgical retouching of his face, frame by frame.”
Despite the many changes needed to make Quaid fit the different stages of Reagan’s life, McNamara is confident no other actor could bring the late president to life.
“There’s no substitute for an actor like Dennis going on various shows to talk about a movie like ours,” he said of Quaid. “It’s that human connection.”
Movieguide® previously reported on REAGAN:
I CAN ONLY IMAGINE actor Dennis Quaid will portray Ronald Reagan in the upcoming biopic, REAGAN. However, Quaid said he was initially confused why they asked him to play the 40th U.S. president.
“I didn’t understand why they were offering me Ronald Reagan because I just didn’t see it,” Quaid told Entertainment Weekly. “I admired him so much, and so I had a chill of fear go down my spine when I was offered it. That’s usually kind of a sign that maybe I should do it, because it’s out of my comfort zone…”
REAGAN is adapted from conservative author Paul Kengor’s book “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism” and will span Reagan’s life “from his childhood to his time in the oval office.”
Producer Mark Joseph revealed that he talked to over 50 people who knew Reagan personally to add to the sprawling biographical drama. The movie will dive into Reagan’s childhood, his time in Hollywood, and his constant fight against communism in the entertainment industry and America.
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