Sean Penn's Controversial Jan. 6 Film Facing Major Hurdles

Five years after a violent mob attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021, an A-list director with an A-list actor aims to bring that historically divisive and explosive event to the big screen.

Three-time Oscar winner Sean Penn is writing and directing a project about Jan. 6th for Warner Bros. Discovery, Page Six Hollywood has learned, and he is in talks with another Oscar winner — Bradley Cooper — to star.

The pairing of Penn and Cooper — both generational talents — on this material would seem to make sense from an awards standpoint. While details are sparse, Penn, who is coming off his third Oscar win (for his supporting part in “One Battle After Another”), is said to be writing the story for Cooper, who’d play a role based on an actual figure present at the Capitol on the day it was stormed.

CAA principal Bryan Lourd has been helping Penn shepherd the project, and Warner Bros. would seem like an ideal home, considering its motion picture group co-chairs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy are two of the most auteur friendly (and ballsiest) major studio executives working today.

They also may each have one foot out the door with the Paramount Skydance takeover looming.

But De Luca and Abdy’s steeliness may not be enough to get this project over the finish line for one simple reason: its controversial subject matter at a deeply complex political moment nationally and in Hollywood itself.

Last week, Paramount, led by David Ellison with financial backing from his father Larry Ellison, secured U.S. Department of Justice approval for its $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The mega-deal, however, is taking place against the backdrop of threats from various state attorneys general — including California’s Rob Bonta — to file lawsuits blocking the merger over antitrust violations.

Even with a Trump administration that seems favorable to Paramount — the elder Ellison has been a huge supporter of the president, and plays a pivotal behind-the-scenes role for the administration — it’s still “touch and go” for the historic pact which faces several more obstacles, making a Warner Bros. Jan. 6 project that much more remarkable and, by all accounts, delicate.

In his second term, President Trump has made the Jan. 6 Capitol attacks one of the centerpieces of his grievances regarding how he was treated in his first term. Upon taking back the White House, he gave blanket clemency to nearly 1,600 defendants. The Department of Justice then reportedly purged itself of hundreds of lawyers who had worked on probes into the U.S. Capitol rioters during the Biden Administration.

One source noted that CAA arranged the project’s financing entirely as a so-called “negative pickup,” with a budget somewhere in the $20 million range. Penn is producing with John Ira Palmer and John Wildermuth under their Projected Picture Works banner.

The wild cards are De Luca and Abdy, who had a historic year in 2025 with a string of successes, including “Sinners,” “Weapons,” “A Minecraft Movie” and “One Battle After Another.”

In October, the veteran duo had their deal renewed at Warner Bros., but speculation over whether they plan to stay put post-merger has been rampant. Throwing at least some of their remaining chips in on a high-profile project with Penn and Cooper on board that has the full backing of Lourd and CAA would be in keeping with previous moves they have made, even in a time of widespread industry uncertainty.

When De Luca and Abdy ran MGM (before Amazon acquired it), they gambled on another hot potato: the 2021 film “Flag Day.” That film was directed by Penn, who also starred alongside his daughter, Dylan Penn, as a devoted dad with a criminal double life.

The film, which had a reported budget of around $10M, made just $1.3M at the global box office and $425,000 domestically. Warner Bros. is also reportedly reteaming with Maggie Gyllenhaal on a new project following the release of her Gothic romance “The Bride!” which was one of the few bombs they had in 2025.

Reps for Penn did not comment.