Reagan movie trounces expectations with blockbuster opening weekend - despite being slammed by liberal critics

The Ronald Reagan biopic has trounced expectations with a blockbuster opening weekend - despite being slammed by liberal critics.

Regan earned $7.4million in box office revenue from Friday through Sunday, and had an estimated cumulative total of $9.2million - including projections for Labor Day Monday, the Christian Post reports.

It wound up finishing third in the box office over the holiday weekend, behind Deadpool & Wolverine and Alien, and earned a 98 percent approval rating among movie-goers on Rotten Tomatoes.

That is a stark contrast from the dismal 18 percent approval score it earned from movie critics, marking the largest gap between critics and audiences in Hollywood history.

'We are thrilled to be sitting in the top five with our first movie in a competitive market over the holiday weekend,' said Kevin Mitchell, president of the newly-launched Showbiz Direct, which released the film on 2,750 screens.

Regan earned $7.4million in box office revenue from Friday through Sunday, and had an estimated cumulative total of $9.2million

It also earned a 98 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes,  despite a critics score of 22 percent approval

'We expect the film will continue to grow in the weeks ahead, especially in the South and Midwest,' he said. 

The film follows Reagan's journey from his humble small-town childhood to Hollywood stardom and eventually to the 40th president of the United States.

It focuses on his resilience and the support of his wife, Nancy, and is narrated by a fictional former KGB agent whose life intersects with Reagan's during his time as a Hollywood star.

But the biopic had faced issues almost from the start.

It was originally slated to be released in 2023, but Reagan faced production delays due to COVID-related lockdowns and the actors' strike.

Dennis Quaid, who plays the titular president, also said there were a 'couple of attempts to cancel me' during the production of the film.

Dennis Quaid, who plays the titular president, told podcaster Joe Rogan people tried to cancel him during the production of the film

He then told podcaster Joe Rogan that Facebook even censored online promotion of the film out of concern it could 'sway an election,' though the platform later blamed the 'mistake' on its 'automatic systems.'

'This happened because our automated systems mistakenly determined that content about President Reagan required prior authorization in accordance with our policies for ads about Social Issues, Elections or Politics,' a spokesperson for the social network told Newsweek after it shared a letter from Quaid.  

'This was a mistake and the restriction on the ads has been lifted.'

Following the film's release this weekend, critics also hit out the film for its portrayal of the Republican president.

'Regardless of how you feel about Ronald Reagan, the president, most will be united in finding this biopic a preachy, plodding, graceless groaner,' Nick Schager wrote for the Daily Beast. 

He said it was 'ungainly and transparent that it plays like embarrassing propaganda.'

Similarly, Boston Globe critic Odie Henderson wrote that it is 'so sanitized that it feels like Darryl Zanuck or Reagan's old boss Jack Warner would have slapped it onscreen back in 1940.'

The film focuses on Reagan's resilience and the support of his wife, Nancy, and is narrated by a fictional former KGB agent whose life intersects with Reagan's during his time as a Hollywood star

Henderson said the film 'panders to Evangelicals.'

'This means you get to sit through self-righteous twaddle about how Reagan was ordained by Jesus to defeat those godless communists and student protesters at Berkeley,' he criticized.

Robert Abele also wrote for the Los Angeles Times that Quaid is 'just an imitation puppet, the high-wattage shell masking a hollow portrait, tailor-made for religious conservatives with a thin grasp on history and no tolerance for nuance.'

But many who watched the film over the holiday weekend praised it.

'Very patriotic,' one audience member wrote on Rotten Tomatoes.'

Another said it was 'a biopic [which] looks at many important experiences in Reagan's life.

'Many facts are upsetting to the left, but for a bio it is very good,' she wrote. 'Not many presidents would merit this kind of movie.'

A third movie-goer also said they 'loved this movie

'What a man of conviction and courage!!' the reviewer said of the former president. 

'He stood up for what he believed in and wouldn't be moved by political consequences.'

Actor Dennis Quaid attributes the film's success to Reagan's popularity on both sides of the aisle

Quaid now attributes the film's success to Reagan's popularity on both sides of the aisle.

'Having a dialogue is really what it's about,' he said.

'I think that's what we need to get back to in this country,' Quaid continued. 'We all seem to want to and we're searching around for how to do that.

'It's been so long, there's been so much divisiveness. It's like you can't have these conversations.

'It's OK if you have a different opinion because we all want the same thing,' he continued. 'How we're going about it is just different.'

DailyWire CEO Jeremy Boreing also suggested to the Christian Post that the left tends to label any opposition as divisive.

'Reagan was the most unifying figure to run for president in the lifetime of most of us here today. Who can lay claim to 49 states in a re-election bid?' he asked.

Boreing went on to talk about censorship of the right, saying: 'We've never seen an expression of informational political power in this country like what we're witnessing just in the events of the last 45 days.

'And it's esasy to be despirited. It's easy to lose hope. It's easy to look around the world at the worst examples of where these sort of things can lead and think that we're doomed to repeat those.

'I don't think that's the case at all. I think we're called to be optimisitic.

'And seeing the success within the living memory of a figure like Reagan, I think should remind us all of that.'