FEATURE | SCREWBALL SATIRE
A struggling rookie reporter lies to save her job – turning an Orson Welles radio play into a made up Martian panic – sparking a national sensation and a political frenzy, and forcing her to choose between the truth and the newspaper she loves.
PANIC! is a comedy feature about the origin story of fake news.
It’s HAIL, CAESAR! meets BROADCAST NEWS – a story about truth, lies and newspapers, told with the fast-talking screwball energy of the Coen Bros and the wit and heart of James L Brooks.
Everyone knows the story of the War of the Worlds radio play that caused mass panic. The thing is, everyone is wrong. It never happened. It was invented by newspapers to discredit the radio.