Filmmaker Nick Loeb’s fourth film “Roe v. Wade,” which chronicles the landmark 1973 abortion decision, will premiere at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, on Friday. “Roe v. Wade” will release in April on Amazon Prime and iTunes for viewing.
With sold-out tickets for CPAC and former President Donald Trump set to speak on Sunday, this will undoubtedly be a major platform for the film.
“Because the movie aligns with the conservative message, I reached out to CPAC to see if they would have any interest in holding it during the event because it’s in Florida and they’ve got a giant space that will accommodate social distancing,” Loeb told The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday. “The actual event space that will show the movie can hold 1,500 people with social distancing. That’s huge, so I couldn’t turn that down. If I went and had a premiere in Orlando without CPAC, there wouldn’t be any press. It was a no-brainer for us.”
Loeb co-wrote the project with Cathy Allyn, who previously served as head of production at Big Picture. Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight, a vocal conservative, stars as the Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren E. Burger in the film. Loeb stars as Dr. Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, prior to becoming an anti-abortion activist and renaming the organization the National Abortion Rights Action League.
Other cast members include Robert Davi as Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr., Lucy Davenport as feminist author Betty Friedan, with appearances from Mike Lindell and Tomi Lahren. Voight is scheduled to give the keynote speech at the premiere, and most other cast members will reportedly be in attendance at CPAC.
In 2020, “Roe v. Wade” premiered at the Vienna Independent Film Festival, where Voight took home the award for best supporting actor. It had an estimated budget of about $8.5 million and attempts to “just lay out the facts of how Roe v. Wade came to be and how it was decided,” in order to allow people to “take one view or another,” according to Loeb.
“Roe v. Wade” made headlines in Jan. 2019 when it was reported that Facebook prohibited the film from running advertisements on its platform. Breitbart News contacted Facebook, who claimed, “The ads involve advocacy for an issue under our ‘issues of national importance.’” Similarly, YouTube demonetized the film’s page for “invalid activity” in regard to their AdSense account.
Loeb’s project moves through the lens of Nathanson, whose change of heart on the abortion issue was controversial at the time. Along with Friedan, Nathanson was a major force behind Roe v. Wade’s outcome in favor of abortion.
“I want people to take away the truth. These are the facts of what happened. I want them to understand how Roe came to be,” Loeb said. “The case gets thrown around all the time without a full understanding of how it came to be and what happened. I really want people to understand, whether they’re pro-choice or pro-life, that when a woman gets pregnant, there’s a baby there. It’s not a clump of cells or a gob of goo. There’s a real living being that has a heartbeat in the first couple of weeks that you can hear. People should understand that so they don’t take abortion so lightly.”
The premiere of “Roe v. Wade” at CPAC comes months after The Daily Wire announced its foray into film and entertainment, releasing its first feature film “Run Hide Fight.” Conservative filmmakers like Loeb face a large task in taking back the culture from the left in the years ahead.
“I have found because of what I support, people have stopped talking to me because of who I may have voted for or who I may have supported or my positions on certain issues. I’ve never seen that in my life until now,” Loeb told The Hollywood Reporter when asked about how conservatives are being blockaded from Hollywood. “We’ve always had intellectual discourse and we’ve always had intellectual debate. Even living in Hollywood, I was a big supporter of Bush and even worked on his campaign. People would constantly debate and argue with me because they didn’t like my positions, but I wasn’t silenced. We’re approaching very dangerous times.”