Conservative radio and television host Glenn Beck will soon be making his mark in the film industry—and he’s already developing three original stories that will be made into movies.
“Everybody thinks they know who I am because of my stint on Fox — that was two years of my life,” Beck said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “I’m much more into culture than I am into politics, and that’s where I intend on making my stand.”
Nearly three years after leaving Fox News, the controversial conservative radio host and media entrepreneur is ramping up a film division at Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his popular radio show and digital media operation TheBlaze. Beck, 50, tells THR he has been refurbishing The Studios at Las Colinas, a 72,000-square-foot facility in Irving, Texas, where such films asJFK and RoboCop and TV shows including Prison Break andWalker, Texas Ranger have been shot. "We're getting it ready for some big plans," he says of the property, which he purchased in June.
Beck says he is developing three original stories as theatrical films -- one set in ancient history, one in modern history and a third he considers "faith-based" -- and has optioned several other ideas, some of which could be adapted into VOD features. He adds that he has purchased rights to his 2008 best-seller The Christmas Sweater back from Sony and will turn the story into a movie for television or theatrical release.
The Christmas Sweater is a semi-fictionalized recounting of a 12-year-old Beck celebrating his last Christmas with his mother before she died. He says his later real-life problems with drugs and alcohol (he's been sober since 1994) can be traced back to that Christmas.
"The meaning of The Christmas Sweater is that there are second chances," says Beck. "It is based not only on my childhood but a dream that I had as an adult after I sobered up."
While big plans are clearly in the works, it was too soon for Beck to discuss specifics, such as who will be involved in producing the films and which artists will end up telling the “great stories that aren’t typical.”
What is clear, however, is that he’s actively veering away from politics with this new endeavor. “We're beginning to agree that Republicans and Democrats suck -- they've built this machine to grind people into the ground. I hate this stuff,” Beck told The Hollywood Reporter. “I hate politics. I hate politicians and I feel like I'm wasting my life. Don't we all know what's happening? George W. Bush was taking us down a road, and Barack Obama is taking us down that same road. What difference does it make? I don't want to waste my life anymore."
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