Because Hollywood isn’t serving much of what conservatives crave these days, they’ve increasingly begun making it without Hollywood. (As Ayn Rand would have done, one assumes, and as much of indie cinema has been doing since forever.) The most interesting recent examples come from popular reactionary platform The Daily Wire, which launched a production shingle at the top of 2021. As of this March, the company has released three films, none of which are quite what Daily Wire critics might expect to find on a streaming menu in between various talk shows hosted by CEO, mascot, and vaginal wetness expert Ben Shapiro.

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“Our mission is simple: We will make great entertainment that all Americans can enjoy, regardless of their political views,” Daily Wire coCEO Jeremy Boreing said in an announcement last year. “If you’re fed up with the cultural edicts of our country’s self-appointed moral overlords in Hollywood and legacy media, stay tuned.”

It’s a fascinating promise. Movies with an express conservative bent often turn out like the staggeringly bad Roe v. Wade; the cloying, self-righteous God’s Not Dead; or Dinesh D’Souza’s eminently debunkable documentaries. What would a conservative movie even look like if it were intended for all Americans to enjoy? I can barely believe I’m saying this, but it would look at least somewhat like The Daily Wire’s feature film output thus far.