Sean Penn’s upcoming feature will take direct aim at MAGA, unpacking the Jan. 6 Capitol riots through the lens of a police officer caught in the crossfire.
The three-time Oscar winner and outspoken political voice has already scripted the untitled project, which is expected to star Bradley Cooper as the lead, Deadline reported. Penn will direct the film for Warner Bros., which also put out last year’s One Battle After Another.
A source explained to Deadline that the film will ultimately be a story about unexpected friendships, but will examine this theme through the lens of an officer entangled in the fateful 2021 attack, during which thousands of Trump supporters descended on the U.S. Capitol in protest of the 2020 election outcome.
Deadline reports that the film is “not a ‘January 6th movie’ per se,” but this storyline seems to be at the crux of the project.
Penn’s interest in writing such a narrative comes as little surprise. The One Battle After Another actor is not one to shy away from politics. And, in 2022, he attended a public hearing of the House Select Committee investigating the attack on the Capitol.
When asked by CNN why he was present at the 2022 hearing, Penn responded, “I’m just here to observe—just another citizen. I think we all saw what happened on January 6, and now we’re looking to see if justice comes on the other side of it.”
Deadline posits that Penn’s script bears a resemblance to the life of Michael Fanone, the D.C. Metropolitan Police officer whom Penn sat beside at the hearing. Whether the film traces Fanone’s story or uses it as a template has not been confirmed, the outlet notes.
Fanone became a central figure in the aftermath of the riots, during which he was brutally assaulted by rioters. The former officer suffered a heart attack, brain injury, and burns in the wake of the attacks and was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. For his response, Fanone was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by former President Joe Biden.
Fanone, a one-time Trump voter. has publicly retracted his support for the president, explaining his shift during many media appearances and a CNN stint.
The upcoming film is slated to begin production in mid-2027. Its release will likely be a humiliating moment for President Trump, whose words prior to the Capitol Hill attack were seen as inciting the political violence that unfolded at the hands of his followers.
Trump has continuously made bizarre remarks and defenses about the rioters, even after re-assuming office in 2025. The president even attempted to establish a $1.7 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to compensate his MAGA allies who Trump claims “suffered weaponization and lawfare.” The fund was widely criticized, even within Trump’s own party.
State representative Jamie Raskin called it “nothing but a racket… to hand out to his private militia of insurrectionists, rioters, and white supremacists, including those who brutally beat police officers on January 6, 2021.”
Penn has previously condemned the president, telling reporter Jim Acosta last May, “I think he might try to destroy the world before he ages out of life.” In 2018, two years into Trump’s first stint as president, Penn called him “an enemy of mankind.”
“President Donald Trump is an enemy of Americans, Republicans, Democrats, Independents and every new child born,” the Oscar-winning actor wrote in a Time magazine op-ed. “An enemy of mankind. He is indeed an enemy of the state.”
