Reagan Movie Release Date

After delays caused by the Covid pandemic and last year’s WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, Reagan — the independently produced biopic starring Dennis Quaid as U.S. President Ronald Reagan — finally has a distributor and a release date.

ShowBiz Direct, the recently launched studio led by former exhibition veteran Kevin Mitchell, former Lionsgate distribution president Richie Fay, and former co-president of Open Road distribution Scott Kennedy, has picked up director Sean McNamara’s movie for a planned Aug. 30 release in theaters nationwide.

“I've had my eyes on this movie for a while,” said Mitchell. "Dennis Quaid does such an amazing job portraying Ronald Reagan. Our goal in launching ShowBiz Direct is to help close the gap between the creative community and exhibition while embracing the theatrical release of motion pictures in a very transparent way. Reagan was sought by many, and we are happy that we could reach an agreement with [producer] Mark Joseph and his team.”

Appearing alongside Quaid in Reagan are Penelope Ann Miller as Nancy Reagan; Mena Suvari as Jane Wyman, Reagan’s first wife; Lesley-Anne Down as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; David Henrie as teenage Ronald Reagan; Kevin Dillon as Warner Bros. studio chief Jack Warner; and Jon Voight as KGB agent Viktor Petrovich.

During an interview for the cover story in our July 2022 issue, Quaid admitted that initially hesitated to take on the role of Reagan.

“I was reluctant to portray him at first,” Quaid said, “because he was a hero of mine. He’s my favorite President of the 20th century, really. I was encouraged by the fact that we were both actors. And we both have a sunny disposition. But it’s one of those things where you get a tingle of fear up your spine about doing.

“But you know what? Whenever I get that, that’s usually an indication that I should do something. So that’s why I did it. It was quite a journey. Really an amazing experience. And Cowboys & Indians is the perfect place to talk about him because you know what a Western icon the guy was. I think that’s really the key to him — the West and the love of the West.”

Set against the backdrop of the Cold War, Reagan was shot in Oklahoma and California,  and follows Reagan's journey from his childhood in Dixon, Illinois, to Hollywood, and then to the Presidency of the United States and the world stage. The film begins with an aging Viktor Petrovich, now 90 years old, being visited by an up-and-coming Russian leader who wants to know how the Soviet Union was lost. Petrovich, the spy who knows everything there is to know about Reagan, begins recounting the tale of his adversary: The man he mockingly nicknamed “The Crusader,” beginning in 1922 when 11-year-old Ronald Reagan faces his first life crisis.

Quaid’s favorite Ronald Reagan film? Kings Row, the 1942 drama often cited as Reagan's finest film, and his own personal favorite as well. It's a seamy tale of small-town hypocrisy that tested the limits of Production Code propriety, with the future Commander in Chief at his most compelling as Drake McHugh, a feckless rake whose legs are needlessly amputated by a sadistic surgeon. (The bad doctor wanted to keep Drake away from his lovestruck daughter.) Upon awakening after the operation, Reagan memorably wails an anguished lament: “Where's the rest of me?” The line became so closely associated with him, he eventually used it as the title of his 1965 autobiography.

“Yeah, that’s probably my favorite movie of his,” Quaid told us in 2022. “But my favorite performance of his was President of the United States. That’s where he showed his great acting skills, dealing with the Soviets the way he did. A lot of that was, he made them think we had Star Wars right around the corner. That went a long way towards bringing them to the table and ending the Cold War. Or at least the Cold War as it was then. He even said that himself, that he was playing the role of the President of the United States. And everything that went with it.”