A thriller about an American family terrorized by the rise of an authoritarian government that uses drone surveillance, militarized police and internet control to demand obedience opened in 800 theaters last weekend, but you probably didn\u2019t know it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnniversary,\u201d starring Diane Lane, Dylan O\u2019Brien, Kyle Chandler and plenty of other name actors, was financed and distributed by Lionsgate. But with a storyline that may have felt too close to our political reality, it seems to have been buried by the studio in a political climate where government retaliation against media has become commonplace.<\/p>\n
The movie had almost no awareness in market tracking, and made a paltry $259,180 over the weekend, just $325 per theater.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe film was buried because it is incendiary,\u201d said Frank Wuliger, a partner at Gersh who represents the director and was instrumental in getting the movie made. \u201cTo me, it\u2019s a sign of the world we live in.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never had a movie that we thought was really interesting that no one was aware of,\u201d producer Nick Wechsler told TheWrap. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to market a political film today. People are afraid of them \u2013 they don\u2019t know how it will be received emotionally. It\u2019s a weird time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lionsgate declined to comment for this story.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cAnniversary,\u201d by Polish director Jan Komasa (\u201cCorpus Christi\u201d) stars Lane as a professor at Georgetown whose former student, played by Phoebe Dynevor (of \u201cBridgerton\u201d) writes an anti-democratic political thesis called \u201cThe Change\u201d that wins nationwide attention after it is published by a right-wing organization that rises to power. She also marries Lane\u2019s son, who becomes part of the dominant political apparatus and pivots from struggling writer to arrogant\u00a0power player. As democratic norms evaporate, Lane and her husband (Chandler) and adult children \u2014 played by Zoey Deutsch, Madeline Brewer and McKenna Grace \u2014 first resist, then cave to the crushing force of the state.<\/p>\n Much of the emotional core of the film happens around the family dining table for birthdays, anniversaries and Thanksgiving, as political beliefs clash between liberal views and those advocating for a (never fully explained) single-party system. Scenes including government census workers demanding intimate details of the family, or neighbors pressuring the family to show their allegiance to \u201cThe Change\u201d with the new American flag, play as particularly close to our current reality.<\/p>\n \u201cThe events that take place over the course of five years in Jan Komasa\u2019s film would have been summarily dismissed as hogwash just a year or two ago, but now fearfully sounds a bigger alarm than anything in \u2018A House of Dynamite,\u2019\u201d wrote Sheri Linden in her review for The Hollywood Reporter.<\/p>\n \u201cDiane Lane Leads Cast of Dystopian Political Thriller That Feels a Bit Too Close for Comfort in Trump\u2019s America,\u201d read the headline for Pete Hammond\u2019s review\u00a0in Deadline, echoing the mirror image the film holds up to reality.<\/p>\n \u201cAnniversary\u201d (Lionsgate)<\/p>\n But those were rare reviews by established outlets. The film was not reviewed by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times or Washington Post or many other outlets, highly unusual for a film with a significant theatrical release. (TheWrap\u2019s critic was unable to screen the film in time for embargo lift and did not review either.)<\/p>\n Only two cast members besides Lane attended the premiere in October, discouraged by their agents and publicists to associate with the project, according to people close to the film. And exhibitors were hardly interested in supporting the movie. In the theaters where the film was booked, there were precious few screenings. On the west side of L.A., it was screened mid-afternoon at AMC Century City and at 10 p.m. in Marina del Rey.<\/p>\n A studio insider said the film had a $3 million marketing budget, and was always intended to be a small release with a bigger life on streaming. The film will play on Hulu, Lionsgate\u2019s streaming partner.<\/p>\n The insider also pointed fingers at the talent for failing to show up for the film, suggesting that the political content was a disincentive. \u201cWith the exception of the principal actor, they were largely absent from the campaign,\u201d said the insider.<\/p>\n Representatives for Lane declined to comment for this story. But individuals close to the actress said she was sharply disappointed at the studio\u2019s lack of support for the film, recently asking why the film was not yet on the Academy\u2019s website for awards consideration.<\/p>\n At Lionsgate \u201cthey don\u2019t know how to release these kinds of movies,\u201d said an individual close to the cast. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it was a Trump thing.\u201d<\/p>\n But \u201cAnniversary\u201d does feel like a sign of the times. Entertainment and media has been under constant assault by the Trump administration, with lawsuits over television interviews at ABC and CBS News, and federal investigations into DEI at Disney and Comcast. Hollywood has noticeably moved to the right, not only under pressure from the government but in response to the cultural and political pendulum swing.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also not the first project to be caught up in Hollywood\u2019s fear of Trump \u2014 the premiere date of Apple\u2019s political thriller series \u201cThe Savant\u201d was postponed<\/a> in September in the wake of Charlie Kirk\u2019s death, as the show follows a woman who infiltrates online hate groups to prevent mass shootings. The show has still not been put back on Apple\u2019s release calendar, a decision that star\/producer Jessica Chastain publicly said she disagreed with<\/a>.<\/p>\n With \u201cAnniversary,\u201d it would hardly be surprising if Lionsgate made a calculated decision to avoid drawing the attention of the Trump and right-wing attack machine.<\/p>\n The film was made in 2023, when then-President Biden was expected to win. Shot for $7 million in Dublin, it was held up for release after Trump won. Lionsgate put the drama back on its slate for this fall, with an eye to releasing the film ahead of the Nov. 4 election and marketing it as a thriller.<\/p>\n But when right-wing activist Kirk was assassinated, the studio grew even more cautious about releasing \u201cAnniversary.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, the film needed to be released on 800 screens in order to fulfill the terms of the studio\u2019s output deal with Hulu, insiders said.\u00a0Hence, an almost stealth release.<\/p>\n Wuliger said he was deeply disappointed to see the film held up for its initial release, but understands why Lionsgate likely lowered the movie\u2019s profile.<\/p>\n \u201cDo I want this film to be on Trump\u2019s radar and have him attack this film from the podium? \u2026 I have sympathy for Lionsgate here,\u201d he said. \u201cThey buried it. They could have buried it worse. But they made the movie, and that\u2019s impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Did Lionsgate Bury the Political Thriller \u2018Anniversary\u2019 Because of Trump?<\/a> appeared first on TheWrap<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A thriller about an American family terrorized by the rise of an authoritarian government that uses drone surveillance, militarized police and internet control to demand obedience opened in 800 theaters last weekend, but you probably didn\u2019t know it. \u201cAnniversary,\u201d starring Diane Lane, Dylan O\u2019Brien, Kyle Chandler and plenty of other name actors, was financed and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2127283,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[348284,406779,349290,348559,364802,329236,82851,406777,406778,406780],"class_list":["post-2135739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-anniversary","tag-authoritarian-government","tag-diane-lane","tag-dylan-obrien","tag-jan-komasa","tag-kyle-chandler","tag-lionsgate","tag-political-climate","tag-political-film","tag-political-reality"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Writer-Will-Tracy-on-Yorgos-Lanthimos-Latest-Trip.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2135739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2135739"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2135739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2135740,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2135739\/revisions\/2135740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2127283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2135739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2135739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2135739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/div>\n
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