‘Heaven’s Gate’ bankrupted United Artists. Will ‘Mar-a-lago Gate’ bankrupt the Democratic Party?
The reviews are in — the raid was a disaster for the Democrats, the Biden Administration, the Justice Department, and the FBI. The stunt turned Never-Trumpers into Forever-Trumpers.
By Drew Allen
‘Heaven’s Gate,’ Michael Cimino’s 1980 epic anti-western, is best remembered as the film that bankrupted United Artists. The $44 million dollar film recouped just $3.5 million, prompting United Artists to be sold to MGM.
After the film screened for critics in New York on November 18th, 1980 the reaction was unanimous and instantaneous — the film was a disaster. In fact, the reviews were so bad that Cimino and United Artists pulled the film from theaters before its scheduled release just two days later, on November 20th.
But the studio, Cimino, and at least one of the actors thought they’d made a good film. A then-36 year old Christopher Walken, who’d played a ranch enforcer in ‘Heaven’s Gate,’ said “I was at that [November 18th] screening, and I thought I’d watched a good movie.” Walken’s view was clearly at odds with everyone else, who’d watched the same film.
After pulling the film from theaters, the studio re-edited the film, cutting the run time down from 219 minutes to 149 minutes. But the film couldn’t be saved. The word was already out — the film stunk. It finally opened on 810 screens on April 24th, 1981 and the rest is history.
The historic failure of ‘Heaven’s Gate’ is attributed with reshaping Hollywood. In the era before ‘Heaven’s Gate,’ artists controlled Hollywood. But after the flop, studio’s took back control from the artists. United Artists had permitted Cimino to make a $44 million dollar film when the average cost of a film had been $12.5 million. Cimino had gone big and the studio paid the price.
I have to hope that the Democratic Party’s latest stunt — unleashing the FBI on President Trump — will have a similar effect on the Democratic Party. Prior to the raid of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-lago home, the Democrats have survived and gotten away with a string of outrageous attacks and fictional narratives.
The Trump-Russia collusion narrative was so baseless and flimsy that even the Democrat-controlled media couldn’t explain it: Donald Trump had colluded with Vladimir Putin to steal the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton. How? They had a title for their script, but no comprehensible or persuasive storyline.
Trump-Russia collusion was like the tv series ‘Lost.’ The premise was intriguing, but the creators of the series hadn’t thought it through. There was no payoff or satisfaction by the end, because ‘Lost,’ like ‘Trump-Russia Collusion,’ had been conceptual and abstract. The numerous side plots, bombshells and storylines were distractions; filler to postpone confronting the eventual and inevitable reality that none if it ever made any sense. Because none of it was true.
After Trump-Russia collusion fell apart, the Democrats invented ‘Quid Pro Quo.’ This too was fiction but, unlike ‘Trump-Russia Collusion,’ which wasn’t even based on a kernel of truth, ‘Quid Pro Quo’ was at least based on a phone call that actually took place — between then-President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky.
Even the impeachment sequel, ‘Trump Incited an Insurrection,’ was based on an event that had taken place. There hadn’t been an insurrection, but a bunch of Trump supporters had, in fact, entered the Capitol building on January 6th, 2020. But this too, like ‘Trump-Russia Collusion’ and ‘Quid Pro Quo,’ fell apart under scrutiny.
Still, even as poll after poll revealed that Americans could care less about the J6 committee and their hearings — a majority of Americans didn’t even watch the hearings — the Democrats continued to double down and continue their production.
Like United Artists and Cimino, the Democrats are divorced from reality. Like actor Christopher Walken, who watched the screening of ‘Heaven’s Gate' and thought he’d watched a good film, the Democrats seem to think the production they’re putting on about Trump inciting an insurrection is good stuff.
The latest FBI raid of Mar-a-lago is the Democratic Party’s screening of their disaster for audiences and critics. Like United Artists, they went big; unleashing the corrupt FBI on a former President of the United States. It’s an unprecedented abuse of power, analogous to UA’s own unprecedented $44 million dollar gamble.
The reviews are in — the raid was a disaster for the Democrats, the Biden Administration, the Justice Department, and the FBI. The stunt turned Never-Trumpers into Forever-Trumpers.
But just as UA and Cimino couldn’t abandon their disaster — too much had already been invested — the Democrats can’t abandon their disaster. The Democrats have invested everything they have in getting Trump.
The reaction to the Democrats’ FBI raid has been immediate and unanimous. While they appear shocked by the overwhelmingly negative response from the American people, they are now frantically and hurriedly rushing to edit and deliver some final production. Already their edits seemed destined for epic failure.
In the aftermath of the American people’s rebuke of the Raid, the DOJ has leaked that the FBI was searching for classified documents relating to nuclear weapons. It appears that in their desperate effort to salvage their narrative, the Democrats are only making a bad production even worse; an already implausible story entirely unbelievable — even comically insane. They’ve turned their own drama into satire.
United Artists had a long string of successes before ‘Heaven’s Gate.’ But it only took one monumental flop to destroy them. The Democrats haven’t released their edited and final cut of the Trump Saga, but I hope it has the same effect as ‘Heavens Gate;’ that it bankrupts the Democratic Party and reshapes American politics.
‘Heaven’s Gate’ compelled the Hollywood Studios to wrest control of filmmaking from the narcissistic artists. I’m hopeful that the Democrats’ ‘Mar-a-lago Gate’ compels the American people to wrest control of our country from the corrupt, tyrannical Democratic Party.
The Democrats just went big. They too, must pay the price.
‘Heaven’s Gate’ bankrupted United Artists. Will ‘Mar-a-lago Gate’ bankrupt the Democratic Party?