Written by Paul Bond
Gray Frederickson will co-produce "America," the follow-up to "2016: Obama's America," along with Gerald Molen, who also won an Oscar for Best Picture.
Gray Frederickson, who won a Best Picture Oscar for The Godfather Part II, has joined conservative author Dinesh D’Souza for his follow-up to 2016: Obama’s America, the second-most popular political documentary in history.
Frederickson has become a co-producer on the film, simply dubbed America, which is based on D’Souza’s 2002 book, What’s So Great About America? In doing so, he joins another winner of a Best Picture Oscar, Gerald Molen, who won for Schindler’s List.
Molen also co-produced 2016, which was released in July 2012 and earned $33.4 million at the domestic box office, more than any other political documentary except Michael Moore’s 2004 film, Fahrenheit 9/11. America is directed by John Sullivan, who also directed 2016.
D’Souza was the star, co-writer and co-director of 2016, and he’s expected to reprise those roles for America. In the book, D’Souza makes the case that the U.S. should not be compared with some sort of utopia but against the rest of the world, and when it is, it measures up quite well.
Below is a teaser trailer for America.
Frederickson, whose credits include Apocalypse Now, One From the Heart and The Outsiders, said he met D’Souza at an editing facility in Oklahoma, where he lives and where some of America was shooting. He said he found 2016 to be “enlightening,” and that the entertainment industry is more politically diverse than one might expect, given its reputation for overwhelmingly embracing left-of-center policies and candidates.
“Hollywood consists of a small number of liberals, a huge number of people who pretend to be liberal to please that small group of liberals, and conservatives who used to be bullied but now are increasingly coming out of the closet,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.
Frederickson is no stranger to documentaries, as he produced The Grand Energy Transition in 2012, a movie that makes the case that hydraulic “fracking” does not harm the environment. That film was partially funded by Ted Turner and billionaire energy tycoon T. Boone Pickens.
“America comes out on the Fourth of July in theaters across the country and it will be as spectacular and groundbreaking as America has been,” Frederickson said.
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Source: Hollywood Reporter