Sean Penn Just Announced a January 6 Movie and the Man Funding It Has Dinner With Donald Trump

June 21, 2026 Cat2, The Media
Andreas_Bergerstedt via shutterstock

Hollywood gave Sean Penn his third Oscar three months ago.

He didn't bother showing up to accept it.

Now he's making a January 6 movie – and the man who will soon own the studio that greenlit it just attended a UFC event at the White House.

Warner Bros. Greenlights the Most Predictable Film in Hollywood History

Penn announced Tuesday he'll write and direct an untitled drama centered on a police officer caught up in the January 6 Capitol riot.

Bradley Cooper is reportedly in talks to star.

Warner Bros. is backing the whole operation.

The studio described the project as "an unexpected story about friendship" – marketing language cooked up to minimize controversy before the movie even has a title.

Penn sat beside D.C. Metropolitan Police officers Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges at the 2022 House Select Committee hearings.

He told CNN he was there as "just another citizen" to see if justice would come out the other side.

Now he's building a film around that version of events.

Production doesn't start until mid-2027.

Conservatives Already Wrote the Review

Social media reacted within hours.

Conservative commentator DC Draino immediately named what the film almost certainly won't include – the footage of police waving people into the Capitol area and Nancy Pelosi turning down the National Guard offer.

That's the part that doesn't fit the narrative Penn is building.

Buck Sexton, co-host of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, went straight to the finances – calling out studios and actors who "know in advance, or should know, that they're throwing cash in the trash. And they do it anyway."

"Incoming flop," the X account Catturd predicted.

"The movie is already D.O.A.," another user wrote. "Now it's just a question of how much money it would lose."

They're not wrong about the math.

The Man Who Will Own This Movie Eats Dinner With Trump

Penn isn't just making a politically radioactive film – he picked the wrong studio at the wrong moment.

The Justice Department just cleared the $111 billion deal that puts Warner Bros. under the control of David Ellison – whose father Larry Ellison attended a UFC event at the White House just days before Penn's film announcement dropped.

At least one industry observer has already noted the obvious: if Ellison's Skydance is firmly in control by mid-2027, this project could easily get scrapped before cameras roll.

The Warner Bros. film chiefs who greenlit this may not even have jobs by then.

Meanwhile, the domestic box office dropped 14 percent on a per-film basis in 2025 – average returns fell from $92.5 million per wide release to $79.5 million as audiences kept staying home.

They're definitely not paying $15 to watch Sean Penn's version of an event half the country believes was a Democrat-manufactured trap, not an insurrection.

Penn's film will tell the story of heroic officers defending democracy against a mob of Trump supporters.

The audience for that movie already has a name: it's the same people who watched the January 6 committee hearings and believed every word of them.

That's not a theatrical audience.

That's a Twitter feed.

Hollywood has a very expensive habit of setting money on fire to prove a point – and this time, the man holding the matches is about to work for someone who has the President's cell number.

Americans already know how this one ends.

Sources:

  • Brent Lang, "Sean Penn Directing January 6 Drama With Bradley Cooper Starring," Variety, June 17, 2026.
  • "Sean Penn to Direct Warner Bros. Movie About a Police Officer at the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot," Associated Press via U.S. News and World Report, June 16, 2026.
  • "Sean Penn Ties All-Time Record for Male Acting Wins at Oscars 2026," The Hollywood Reporter, March 16, 2026.
  • "The Untold Domestic Box Office Collapse: Movies Made 14% Less on Average in 2025 Versus 2024," That Park Place, January 5, 2026.
  • Alana Mastrangelo, "Sean Penn's Upcoming January 6 Movie Slammed as 'Woke Liberal Slop,'" Breitbart News, June 17, 2026.