Hollywood in Toto Director Kyle Rankin writes movies out of fear, mostly his own.
Rankin, who caught our attention with “The Battle of Shaker Heights” (2003) and, later, “Run Hide Fight” (2020), is back with a theme that keeps him up at night.
College students rejecting America while embracing the Palestinian cause. That combination leaves us vulnerable to a very real threat – radical Islam, an enemy that took out nearly 3,000 lives in just one day 25 years ago.
That trepidation led to “Run Hide Fight: Infidels,” the new DailyWire+ original that doubles as a satire of the modern Left.
“I’m fearful about losing the thread here in the country,” Rankin tells HiT.
“Run Hide Fight: Infidels” follows a group of students fighting back when their campus is overrun by Islamic terrorists. The same woke students who spent weeks protesting all things Israel are suddenly scrambling for their lives.
Many won’t make it.
A potential savior? A retired Delta Force soldier (Jonathan Majors) on campus to deliver a stern warning about the “green and red” alliance – the modern Left and Islamic radicals.
“Infidels” teems with comic relief, from the farcical campus radicals to scene-stealer David Lucas as an unlikely hero.
Rankin gently pushes back on the satirical label.
“I think of it as an ‘80s, ‘90s action movie with more humor than expected,” he says. Those serial laughs still happen for a reason.
“Humor is a great way to ingratiate a film with an audience,” he says, something he learned at the dawn of his career. He recalls feedback from a friend who noticed his work lacked a single, definable joke. That’s not how life works, the friend said at the time.
He agreed, and the feedback stuck with him. Plus, he admits there’s some projection in his screenplay. “I get to say a bunch of things about America that I believe,” he says.
It’s also a warning to Hollywood.
Ignore potent themes like woke gone wild and Islamic terrorism at your peril. Now, emerging content creators and studios will feast on them without your permission.
“Hollywood is turning a blind eye to all this stuff,” he says, adding that the industry is running out of “made-up bad guys.” Filmmakers should take a knee on yet another European white dude with a foreign accident and “look statistically at who the bad guys in the world are.”
The film’s biggest star, Jonathan Majors, went from hero to villain in the eyes of Hollywood and elsewhere. The charismatic actor was pegged to anchor the next “Avengers” saga as Kang the Conqueror.
Then his personal life exploded.
Majors was found guilty of third-degree reckless assault and second-degree harassment in 2023. He avoided the slammer, but his rising-star status crumbled.
“Infidels” marks his return to acting, and Rankin says he’d work with Majors again “in a heartbeat.”
“He’s gracious and grateful,” he says, adding he was “super professional on-set” and playfully called his director “Coach.”
“He took being number one on the call sheet seriously,” he notes, adding he socialized with the cast, composed of lesser-known actors.
For now, “Run Hide Fight: Infidels” is a DailyWire+ exclusive. Rankin wouldn’t mind seeing the film go the VOD route at some point, much like “The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin” saga did just weeks ago.
That’s beyond his control, but he teases that a third “Run Hide Fight” adventure could happen.
The ‘Run Hide Fight: Infidels’ Scene Everyone Is Talking About
One scene shows the inevitable consequences of leftist activists embracing radical Islam.https://t.co/lGI2cXaGV8
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) September 18, 2026
That’s noteworthy since the veteran director never imagined “Run Hide Fight” as a series in the first place. He credits producers Mike Richards and Dallas Sonnier for planting that seed.
That gave him license to craft an “ensemble action picture” with a major twist. Just about every element of the film wouldn’t pass muster in Hollywood, Inc.
It’s not remotely PC. The story features the “wrong” villains. And the message is equally “wrong,” mocking woke college students who cover for foreign terrorists.
The LA Times even dubbed the film “racist” sight unseen for daring to divert from the industry’s standard-issue template.
Again, he credits Sonnier with giving him the freedom to tweak the status quo.
“I’ve got Dallas to say, ‘Hey, let’s make the movies we want.’ That’s very encouraging. I feel blessed to make these kinds of movies,” he says.
The post ‘Run Hide Fight: Infidels’ Director: Hollywood Ignores Real-World Threat appeared first on Hollywood in Toto.
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