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Showtime Stokes Gippergate
It's Showtime for the Gipper.
After CBS decided to eschew The Reagans, its made-for-TV biopic of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, the Eye gave the green light to Viacom sister network Showtime to unfurl the controversial miniseries. And despite initially planning to hold The Reagans until early next year, Showtime has now decided to capitalize on the ongoing controversy surrounding the film and premiere it November 30 at 8 p.m.
"Most of the [outcry] is from people pronouncing things about the movie without having seen it," Showtime entertainment president Robert Greenblatt told Variety. "Getting it out there quickly seems like the right thing to do, to show it so people can stop talking about it in an abstract way. Then I invite people to talk about it all they want. It's unfortunate they want to make judgments before it's even aired."
Indeed, Greenblatt is literally inviting people to discuss the movie after it debuts. On December 1, Showtime will air a panel discussion, with a crew of politicians, historians and film advisers to-be-named debating the merits of the movie. The network also tentatively plans to include viewers in the mix by allowing them to call in.
"The movie is being so highly debated and seems such an incendiary topic right now, we should just put people in a room to have it out," Greenblatt told Variety. "It's quintessentially the American way."
CBS, and now Showtime, has been blasted over the movie, which stars James Brolin as the 40th President, with conservative groups disparaging what they claim is an unflattering and unfair portrait of the former first couple.
CBS honcho Les Moonves even called for re-edits on the movie, much to the chagrin of director Robert Allen Ackerman, who quit the miniseries after Moonves & Co. demanded the movie be tweaked.
"We've looked at the rough cut. There are things we like...there are things we don't like...there are things that go too far," Moonves said in an interview with CNBC last month. "So there are some edits being made trying to present a more fair picture of the Reagans."
One main sticking point--which has reportedly been exorcised from the three-hour version of the movie that will air on Showtime--was a scene that had the then-President denouncing efforts to combat AIDS, saying that "they that live in sin shall die in sin." Defenders of the former prez point out there's no proof that Reagan, now 92 and in advanced stages of Alzheimer's, ever made such a statement.
Detractors also found it difficult to stomach the politics of The Reagans' producers, avowed liberals Neil Meron and Craig Zedon, and star Brolin (hubby of Democratic fundraiser Barbra Streisand).
"I fully expect this miniseries will be largely unfavorable to my dad," radio talk show host Michael Reagan wrote last month. "Hollywood has been hijacked by the liberal left."
Maryland government affairs consultant Michael Paranzino even set up a Website, boycottcbs.com, to try and dissuade viewers from tuning in to the movie, which, with Showtime's 15 million subscribers, will have a much smaller audience than if it had premiered to CBS' 108 million potential viewers.
"I think that Showtime realized they have a turkey on their hands," Paranzino told the Associated Press. "And turkeys don't last much beyond Thanksgiving."
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