Andy Serkis Opens George Orwell Animal Farm Amid Right-Wing Backlash

Andy Serkis’s george orwell animal farm opens May 1 with a 23 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating and a political fight that has little to do with the film’s own argument. MAGA influencers have seized on the adaptation with clashing readings of Orwell’s 1945 book, turning a release about authoritarianism into an online test of ideology.

Riley Gaines and Tim Pool

Riley Gaines posted the trailer on April 28 and called it “incredibly well done. They do a perfect job of reminding viewers that Marxism always has and always will fail.” She also used the hashtag #AnimalFarmPartner, while Tim Pool went the other direction and said, “Promoting communism is the new gay for pay.”

Earlier this month, Pool said he turned down an offer from Angel Studios to promote the film because it was “pro communism and anti-capitalism.” That framing collides with Orwell’s source material, which is a critique of Stalinism and, in the book’s own structure, of how power replaces principle once the animals overthrow their human owner.

Glenn Close’s Human Character

Serkis changed Orwell’s ending and added a greedy human character voiced by Glenn Close who wants to buy the farm. The director described the movie as “about authoritarianism and power corrupting and our response to that,” which puts the adaptation closer to a broad warning about political power than to either side’s social-media shorthand.

Peachy Keenan still read it as “retarded socialist propaganda,” and that split matters because the movie’s backers at Angel Studios — the Utah-based company that also distributed Sound of Freedom and The King of Kings — are releasing a title whose politics are being claimed by people who do not agree on what Orwell was attacking in the first place. The irony is obvious: a book built on ideological satire is now being used as a badge by commenters who are arguing past each other.

May 1 and Rotten Tomatoes

The 23 percent Rotten Tomatoes score gives the film a weak critical launch, but the louder issue is interpretive. Serkis has already said what the movie is about; the online fight has instead recast george orwell animal farm as a proxy battle over whether the story lands on communism, capitalism, or the abuse of power itself. For viewers opening it on May 1, that mismatch is the movie’s real release-day story.