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The “Reagan” biopic with Dennis Quaid playing former President Ronald Reagan will return to theaters with new scenes as America celebrates its 250th birthday.
According to Deadline, there are plans for both limited audience screenings on July 4 in over a dozen cities, as well as a wider-scale rerelease in September in 600 theaters. This theatrical run will include an additional 10 minutes of footage not included in the original run of the film.
Deadline specified, “The additional scenes include moments between Reagan and his wife Nancy (Penelope Ann Miller) in the Oval Office, a scene between Reagan and his alcoholic father, Jack, and scenes at the Reagans’ ranch near Santa Barbara. In its initial run, the film had a worldwide gross of more than $30 million, per Box Office Mojo.”
Director Sean McNamara said of the extended cut in the rerelease, “One of the hardest things about directing a feature film is leaving behind incredible moments on the cutting room floor. I’m so happy to have some of my favorite scenes back in the film for audiences to experience them for the first time.”
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One memorable aspect of the film’s original release was its parallels with the rise of Reagan himself.
Author Paul Kengor, whose books on Reagan were used as the basis for the film and who worked directly with the filmmakers, suggested the “disparity” between the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score and audience score for the movie “Reagan” was comparable to Reagan’s landslide presidential win in 1980 as he recalled his books’ whirlwind ride to the theaters.
As of the time of this reporting, the “Reagan” film on Rotten Tomatoes maintains a massive disparity between the dismal critics’ score of 17% versus the wildly popular audience-rated score of 98%.
A writer for The Boston Globe called it an “interminable hagiography” and “a wretched 2½-hour bore that’s uncurious about its subject.” A Washington Post critic called it “worthless” as a piece of history, while the Daily Beast called it the worst movie of the year.
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Kengor said the disparity between the audience and critics’ reviews reminded him of the 1980 presidential election, which Reagan won in a landslide against Democratic incumbent President Jimmy Carter.
“Yeah, the disparity is really profound,” Kengor said of the reviews. “In fact, it reminds me of what happened in 1984 when Ronald Reagan won 49 out of 50 states, which is probably about 98% of the states. If you do the math on this, 49 of 50 states won about 60% of the vote, won the Electoral College 525 to 13. But you had these liberal critics who didn’t like him, and they were very much in the minority. And I tell my students today, I tell other people, when you meet some liberal professor who is slamming Ronald Reagan in the classroom, just say, ‘You know, professor, but how did the guy win 49 out of 50 states?’ Right? I mean, he was liked, he was always liked.”
Fox News’ Cortney O’Brien contributed to this report.
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