Files on government involvement in popular culture, from the CIA in Hollywood to the Pentagon and reality TV. I obtained these documents via FOIA requests and from various archives.
The US military’s negotiations on the 1980s Clint Eastwood vehicle Heartbreak Ridge were protracted and complex, resulting in numerous changes…
For over a decade the CBS action drama NCIS has enjoyed a very close working relationship with the US military,…
The US Air Force recently released a tranche of documents on the support they provided to the Neil Armstrong biopic…
Michael Bay is well known for working closely with government agencies when making his films, mostly the Pentagon but also…
The Pentagon’s Film Office file on Heartbreak Ridge is one of the more lengthy and interesting sets of documents. It…
The in-development film Raven Four-Two tells the story of a battle in 2005 between insurgents and a Kentucky Army National…
The US Army’s regulations on Public Affairs activities are over 100 pages of rules and restrictions governing how the Army…
Just like other government departments the Foreign & Commonwealth Office requires film and TV producers to sign contracts with them…
The Pentagon recently released the Production Assistance Agreement they signed with the producers of Top Gun: Maverick. It details the…
The PRISM Awards are an entertainment industry ceremony that gives out gongs for accurate depictions of substance abuse and mental…
Despite its enormous popularity there are many problems with Breaking Bad – the utterly racist depiction of Mexicans, the glorifying…
The soft reboot of the political drama Designated Survivor recently dropped on Netflix and in spite of Kiefer Sutherland making…
When James Webb approached the Pentagon to ask for assistance making his Vietnam war drama Fields of Fire he had…
The DOD’s directive on working with Hollywood says that they can provide production assistance if it is deemed ‘in the…
When the producers of Clear and Present Danger approached the Pentagon to ask for military support they probably weren’t expecting…
The Military, Movies and #MeToo
The relationship between intelligence agencies and the entertainment industry is complex and multi-faceted. Angles include the influence of the agencies…
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) recently released nearly 200 pages of contracts between themselves and entertainment producers, which for the…
In 2014 the Washington Post’s Adam Goldman published a story about the CIA producing dolls of Osama bin Laden as…
1988’s The Presidio wanted to film at the real Presidio in San Francisco, an Army installation. As per usual this…
In 1998 retired FBI deputy director Cartha DeLoach was asked by the producers of The X-Files to review the script…
The 2005 biographical war film Jarhead is one of a very small number of films set in the first Gulf…
The Superman reboot Man of Steel launched the (now abandoned) DC Extended Universe, and put a much darker tinge on…
In 1977 the producers of Superman and Superman II approached the Pentagon to try to obtain stock footage of missiles…
In my latest article for Shadowproof I examine the FBI’s role in the Mark Felt biopic Mark Felt: The Man…
The 2010 thriller Unthinkable courted controversy by depicting the torture of a suspected terrorist who claims to have planted nuclear…
Deep Impact is one of a pair of twin films released in 1998 that were based around a giant meteor…
The post-WW2 period was the zenith for military and war movies – over 200 were made in the 1950s, and…
Production assistance agreements released by the Defense Department show the United States military used taxpayer money to subsidize part of…
Little Mizz Innocent has been languishing in development hell for several years as the ‘female Jason Bourne movie’ has struggled…
