Every once in a while, Matt Damon makes a movie that people actually want to see. Usually it has “Bourne” or “Ocean’s” in the title. Thanks to the money and clout he gets from those movies, he can then spend the rest of his time making left-wing crap that’s ignored by most Americans, like The Informant! and Syriana and Green Zone.
You may have heard about Damon’s latest lefty passion project, Promised Land:
Hang onto your heartstrings, America!
Funny thing about that whole scenario, though. The Foundry reports:
A new film starring Matt Damon presents American oil and natural gas producers as money-grubbing villains purportedly poisoning rural American towns. It is therefore of particular note that it is financed in part by the royal family of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates.
The creators of Promised Land have gone to absurd lengths to vilify oil and gas companies, as Scribe’s Michael Sandoval noted Wednesday. Since recent events have demonstrated the relative environmental soundness of hydraulic fracturing – a technique for extracting oil and gas from shale formations – Promised Land’s script has been altered to make doom-saying environmentalists the tools of oil companies attempting to discredit legitimate “fracking” concerns.
While left-leaning Hollywood often targets supposed environmental evildoers, Promised Land was also produced “in association with” Image Media Abu Dhabi, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Media, according to the preview’s list of credits. A spokesperson with DDA Public Relations, which is running PR for the film, confirmed that AD Media is a financier. The company is wholly owned by the government of the UAE.
The UAE, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), has a stake in the future of the American fossil fuel industry. Hydraulic fracturing has increased the United States’ domestic supply of crude oil and natural gas in areas such as the Bakken shale formation and has the potential to increase domestic production much more in the foreseeable future. That means more oil on the market, and hence lower prices for a globally traded commodity.
Which brings new meaning to Promised Land‘s tagline: “What’s your price?” Apparently, it all depends on who’s buying your services. Ain’t that right, Matt Damon?
For more on the hasty rewrite of Promised Land‘s script, in light of recent revelations that anti-fracking activists (like John Krasinki’s character) tend to be frauds in real life, see Phelim McAleer. Short version: It’s all a plot by the oil companies! This explanation can be used for pretty much everything, by the way. Just ask Obama.