Disney opted to fire Gina Carano because she was conservative. Ben Shapiro has opted to hire her for the same reason.
The conservative pundit, who is co-founder of the news website The Daily Wire, announced on Friday that he had worked a deal with the former star of “The Mandalorian” to allow her to star and produce in her own movie.
“The Daily Wire is helping make one of my dreams — to develop and produce my own film — come true. I cried out and my prayer was answered,” Carano said in a statement.
“I am sending out a direct message of hope to everyone living in fear of cancellation by the totalitarian mob. I have only just begun using my voice which is now freer than ever before, and I hope it inspires others to do the same. They can’t cancel us if we don’t let them.”
The Daily Wire has recently announced that it was pursuing ventures into popular culture and entertainment to fight back against Hollywood’s liberal dominance. Shapiro’s company recently released a feature film all “Run, Hide, Fight,” about a school shooting. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a positive rating from 93 percent of people who have seen it.
Carano, a 38-year-old former MMA star who played the popular character Cara Dune on “The Manadalorian,” was fired Wednesday by Lucasfilm, the former production company of “Star Wars” creator George Lucas that was acquired by Disney a few years ago.
Lucasfilm announced that Carano was out because of an Instagram post considered to have been “denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”
That was an Orwellian take on Carano’s point, which was that Jews in Nazi Germany were first targeted by their neighbors before the Hitler regime, and that America is in danger of that now through cancel culture.
But The Hollywood Reporter quoted an unnamed source who said Lucasfilm had been looking for an excuse to dump Carano since November because of her Trump-leaning politics.
Shapiro on Friday welcomed her into the fold.
“It is perfectly clear that they were looking for an excuse to can her because she is conservative,” he said on his podcast monologue.
“We do not stand for this,” Shapiro added. “We decided Daily Wire’s next film will be starring and produced by Gina Carano. We could not be more excited to work with Gina.”
In order to amass resources to wage this fight against what he called the “establishment death star” of liberal institutions, Shapiro pitched a discount rate for new subscribers.
“We want to provide a safe haven for conservatives to say what they feel,” Shapiro said, “and not have to live in fear of the cancel culture coming for them.”
“We’re not going to be canceled. We are not going to allow Gina’s cancellation. And we’re not going to allow your cancellation.”
We’ll support you, Gina.