Michael Reagan blasts Will Ferrell’s Ronald Reagan comedy, ‘Alzheimers is not a comedy’ or joke
Michael Reagan, son of former US President Ronald Reagan, has attacked actor Will Ferrell, his new film Reagan, and the presumed mocking of the President’s struggles with early onset Alzheimer’s.
Ferrell is set to star in and produce a new comedy about Reagan’s second term in office, a period during which the head of state battled early symptoms from Alzheimer’s.
In a series of Twitter posts Michael Reagan, who at 71 is the eldest living child of Ronald and wife Nancy, criticized the concept behind the film.
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“What an Outrag….Alzheimers is not joke…It kills..You should be ashamed all of you [SIC]” he wrote.
“Alzhemers is not a comedy,” he added in a separate tweet.
His comments echoed the feelings of many other people, who took to Twitter to express their misgivings about the film and its subject matter, attacking the politically-motivated creators and yet others shared their personal experiences caring for people with neurodegenerative diseases.
The screenplay for Reagan, written by Mike Rosolio, was on the 2015 “Black List”: an annual industry round-up of the best unproduced spec scripts.
A version of the script obtained by the Telegraph, which may have subsequently been changed, features a scene in which Reagan is frantically looking for “a mark.” His aides search for an individual answering of that name, until an intern realizes that the President, a former actor, is talking about the type of mark used to show actors where they should stand.
The intern, named Frank, persuades the president to “stay in character when the cameras aren’t rolling”, and continues to act as his “director”.
According to The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, the Black List staged a live reading of the film last year, with actors James Brolin, John Cho, Lena Dunham and Nathan Fillion.
