While Steven Spielberg’s latest drama The Post has been praised for being overtly anti-Fake News and starring two of Hollywood’s most vocal Donald Trump critics — Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks — the President’s White House has requested the movie for their screening rooms.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, 20th Century Fox has obliged, sending copies to both the White House and Camp David, where Trump will host a summit this weekend.
Hollywood studios have long sent copies of their movies to the White House, Trump being no exception — one screening of Finding Dory making headlines last year.
Whether Trump will watch The Post remains to be seen, but the irony of playing the Oscar contender will not been lost. Spielberg has spoken candidly about rushing to make the movie to remind people about the importance of freedom of speech and journalistic integrity.
The Post stars Streep as Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee who found himself under threat from President Richard Nixon after publishing a series of stories about the Pentagon Papers in 1971.
Hanks has previously been asked whether he would personally attend a screening of The Post at the White House, saying “I don't think I would.”
“I didn’t think things were going to be this way last November. I would not have been able to imagine that we would be living in a country where neo-Nazis are doing torchlight parades in Charlottesville and jokes about Pocahontas are being made in front of the Navajo code talkers,“ he elaborated. ”And individually we have to decide when we take to the ramparts.”
The Post is released in the UK on 19 January.
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