Hollywood Blockbuster 'Civil War' Coming to a Theater Near You Amid 2024 Election

Described by producers as an "adrenaline-fueled thrill ride through a near-future fractured America balanced on the razor's edge," the promotion of a life-like dystopian film called "Civil War" dropped this week, feeding on the very real fears of increasing social fractures in the United States undergirded by Donald Trump's far-right fascism and a Republican Party increasingly hostile to democratic norms.

Written and directed by filmmaker Alex Garland and set for release in April 2024, the movie's trailer opens by informing audiences that 19 U.S. states have seceded as a military confrontation erupts between a standing U.S. government based in Washington, D.C. and the so-called "Western Forces" that are somehow a coalition army based out of California and Texas.

While the exact politics of the film are not made clear, the trailer certainly evokes a sense of chaos and menace reminiscent of the rhetoric and violence on display during the January 6th insurrection attempt by Trump's MAGA mob in 2021.

As The Verge notes in its review, "It's hard to glean too many story details from the trailer, but it features a small group attempting to infiltrate a heavily fortified Washington, D.C. It also features the tagline 'all empires fall,' so you know things aren't going so well."

Watch the trailer:

Civil War | Official Trailer HD | A24

"This is not at all how it would happen," said Jim Stewartson, a podcaster who frequently critiques the far-right Trump movement, "but a lot of cult members, preppers, boogaloos, & ammosexuals who have been fantasizing about civil war for years are very excited about this movie."

"Dropping this a few months before an existentially important election," Stewartson added, "seems… cynical."

In one scene featured in the trailer, a small group of people on a barren road—including one young woman on her knees—are being questioned by a pair of soldiers with military assault weapons.

"There's some kind of misunderstanding here," says one unarmed member of the group being questioned, "We're Americans, OK?"

"Ok," says the soldier, played by noted actor Jesse Plemmons, before adding: "What kind of American are you?"

And then the guns are raised.