I was looking forward to seeing this summer’s remake of The Manchurian Candidate until I saw the recent trailer which reveals that the villains of the original film (communists) have been changed to an evil corporation (or, as Denzel Washington’s character is heard to remark in said trailer, a bunch of “rich people”). Like the original movie, the remake centers on a group of American soldiers who are kidnapped and brainwashed (during the Korean War in the original, during the First Gulf War in this version) as part of a plot to subvert the government of the United States. One would think it to be natural, given the age and the setting, to make the villains Islamists. Except, of course, it isn’t.

In the nearly three years since September 11th, I cannot think of a single major theatrical release made since 9-11 which has featured Moslem terrorists as the enemy. There may be one which I am forgetting, but I don’t think so. At least two movies which would have featured Islamic terrorists, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Collateral Damage and the adaptation of Tom Clancy’s The Sum of All Fears were changed to make them feature terrorists of other nationalities. In the case of Sum, the well-drawn Islamists of the Clancy novel were replaced by cartoonish neo-Nazis whose nefarious plot made essentially zero sense (since the Europe they were planning on re-Nazifying would surely be destroyed in the course of the apocalyptic nuclear war between the United States and Russia that they sought to trigger).

I can think of three films released since September 11th which has dealt with military or war-related themes in a fashion which could be broadly described as pro-American: Ridley Scott’s brilliant Blackhawk Down, Mel Gibson’s great We Were Soldiers (in my opinion, the best movie made to date about the Vietnam War), and Bruce Willis’ mediocre Tears of the Sun (I exclude the awful Civil War film Gods and Generals from the list, as no one but I and fifteen other people in North America saw it). Of these, only Blackhawk Down featured an Islamic enemy and even that film had cut from it lines which linked the Battle of Mogadishu to September 11th. The other two dealt, respectively, with the first battle of the Vietnam War and a group of Navy SEALS on a rescue mission in Nigeria. In other words: not a single theatrical film has been produced about the military response to the events of September 11th or the War on Terrorism.

This is truly a remarkable development. During the Second World War, the theatres filled with war-themed fare. Not only was this good for the studios (such movies were profitable), but it was good for the country as well in that it both helped remind the public as to the nature of the enemy and to boost morale. So why, then, has Hollywood eschewed the same course this time around? There are two answers: one is business-related, the other is ideological.

First of all, if one is to understand anything about modern Hollywood, one must understand that “American” filmmaking is a multinational industry in the truest sense of that word. For example, Wolfgang Peterson’s recent film Troy cost $225 million to make and market, but it’s only grossed $125 million to date in North America. That makes it a flop, right? Wrong, because it’s also grossed $313 million so far in the rest of the world. By the time worldwide DVD sales are finished, the movie will probably have made Warner Brothers a profit of several hundred million dollars. Troy is not alone. The recent Harry Potter film has made, to date, roughly $200 million in the United States (and Canada) and $270 million overseas (without even being released in all markets there yet). The third Matrix film flopped domestically, taking in just under $140 million, but more than made up for it by raking in about $286 million overseas. The enviro-horror film, The Day After Tomorrow, has made $170 million domestically and $278 million overseas.

When we understand these numbers it becomes easier to understand why, from a business perspective, none of the studios have taken the risk of making a major film about the War on Terrorism: it wouldn’t sell well overseas that, today, is the primary target market for the American film industry. American studios aren’t making movies designed to pack in the crowds in Peoria- they’re making them to sell in Paris. A $200 million summer blockbuster about the war in Afghanistan or Iraq might, under ideal conditions, gross $300 million in the United States, but it would make next to nothing overseas.

Of course, this isn’t the only reason why Hollywood hasn’t touched the war so far. I can think of a number of movies which could be made fairly cheaply and would probably sell. Certainly, with all of the creative minds in Hollywood, some way of being helpful to both the country and to the studio’s balance sheets could be found. But Hollywood isn’t interested in finding such a way because it is consumed with an overriding obsession with the destruction of George Walker Bush.

Hence why Hollywood is willing to throw millions into films like Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and John Sayles’ Silver City but has yet to produce a single pro-Bush film for theatrical release. Why? I can understand why an amoral studio head would finance Fahrenheit 9/11 (it’ll probably make a good return on the $15 million or so that have been invested in its production and marketing), but I can’t comprehend why (if not for ideological reasons) the studios would not bother financing low-budget movies which take the exact opposite tack. Imagine, if you will, a documentary based upon Ann Coulter’s Treason (which, at $30 bucks a piece, sold half a million copies) or a positive bio-pic about Ronald Reagan. The former, I’d imagine, could be made and marketed for $10 million and would probably make at least two or three times that (and possibly more, depending on how viciously the media attacked it). A Reagan bio-pic, if well done, could probably be made for $50 million or so and could easily top $100 million, if the reaction to his recent death is any indication. A smart executive would have put such a film into pre-production a few years ago, ready to shift into gear and launch into theatres less than a year after his death.

Well we’re at it: why the hell was the film adaptation of Left Behind allowed to be produced by a fifth-rate studio on a shoestring budget” Hal Lindsay’s The Late, Great Planet Earth was the top selling book of the whole of the 1970’s. The Left Behind series of books were the top selling book series of the 1990’s. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that, among real Americans, there’s a massive interest in tales of the Christian apocalypse. The first person to make a $100 million blockbuster which treats the subject respectfully and is of even halfway-decent quality is going to make about half a billion dollars. So why hasn’t Hollywood (which just threw away more than that remaking Around the World in 80 Days) done it already? The answer can only be that they are blinded by their own bigotry.

So what, then, is the answer? I can see only one: new players need to enter into the industry. Hollywood as the center of the cultural wars. We cannot, as many cultural conservatives have, merely write it off. It has massive powers to educate, to inform, and to misinform. To simply cede it to the enemy is to surrender in the culture wars. With his The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson showed the way.

Independent conservative filmmakers need to tap the same sources of money as other conservative industries have and create a “counter-industry”, just as happened in the realm of book publishing, cable news, and radio. Just as publishers like Regnery and Random House’s Crown imprint have made loads of money by providing a conservative alternative and just as Rush and Fox News have done the same, there’s a massive chance for the right entrepreneur to make billions by producing well-made films which appeal to the same conservatives who buy Ann Coulter’s books, listen to Sean Hannity, and watch Fox News.