The polar ice caps could melt, the oceans might rise, and maybe someday Manhattan will be underwater because President Trump withdrew from the Paris climate agreement. Speculative science aside, the immediate analysis indicates that Trump just set Al Gore up for another Oscar.
Gore will release a sequel to his 2006 global warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, later this July. And while the former vice president already planned to cast Trump as the environmental villain, the perfectly-timed exit from the emissions agreement only heightens the drama.
“Removing the United States from the Paris Agreement is a reckless and indefensible action,” Gore said Thursday in an advertisement in the costume of a political statement. But if Gore was being honest right now, he’d be thanking Trump.
If the U.S. remained in the climate agreement or if there was a Democrat in the White House right now, there’d be fewer audience members in theaters for his movie. The inconvenient truth for Gore is that Trump is good for ticket sales. Paramount Studios gets it, and they’re not going to let media hysteria go to waste.
A spokesperson from the studio told Hollywood rag, The Wrap, that the filmmakers rewrote the documentary’s ending so that Trump’s Paris decision “will appear in the final film.” Another show business blog, Deadline, reports that Paramount now plans a special limited release of the summer sequel before a country-wide opening.
And from the trailer, it seems that audiences will see plenty of Trump on the big screen. The teaser is a mix of Trump soundbites alongside melodramatic and overproduced shots of Gore as some sort of diplomatic Captain Planet supposedly negotiating with green energy leaders and foreign heads of state.
But edit out Trump and it’s just a supercut of a failed presidential candidate droning on. Just like Skywalker needed Vader, just like Batman needed the Joker, and just like any hero needs a villain, Gore needed an antagonist to carry the drama. Trump owns that role and Hollywood is bound to love it.
They gave Gore’s team an Oscar back in 2006. Judging from the current political climate, it’s almost certain he will repeat that success. And if he’s called on stage to accept the award, before the curtain falls, Gore should remember to thank Trump.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
