THE REPUBLIC is the brainchild of writer Clayton Emery, who envisioned a family drama set in a primarily fascist-state America, with California the last holdout of going along with the plan.
Written in 2008, production began in 2009, with principal photography beginning in May 2009 and completed by mid-November 2009. Post-production would prove to be the most challenging phase of the project, with a rough cut completed in 2010, and then pretty much shelved for a variety of reasons until 2016, when Director Ken Penders recruited Sound Editor James Christopher, noted for his work on the first ROBOCOP film among many others, to the project.
James and Ken cut the trailer featured here as a marketing tool to draw attention to the project while they worked to rebuild the entire film to the version Ken had always envisioned.
When the script was being worked on prior to filming, Ken felt a non-partisan approach was called for with the election of Barack Obama as the new US President. With the candidacy of Donald Trump in 2016, Ken felt he had the perfect villain who could take America to the dark side to set in motion events as depicted in THE REPUBLIC. Those who had seen the rough cut were astounded not only by how timely the story was, but how prescient it was when initially filmed.
It was Ken who made the call to use Trump’s own words as a warning of what was to come combining it with a sequence that best illustrated where a demagogic figure could lead America if left unchecked.
At this time, THE REPUBLIC is in the final stages as it makes its way towards a release to the general public. In the meantime, here’s a look at the world to come that was envisioned and now may be on the verge of actually happening.