Outspoken anti-Trump actor Alan Ritchson, most well-known for his hit Amazon Prime series Reacher, is learning the hard way that alienating half your viewing audience by slamming them for holding to a different worldview than your own is bad for business. Ritchson’s latest big screen entry, Motor City, completely bombed at the box office, despite strong pre-release buzz.
The film, which is super light on dialogue, fits comfortably in the “revenge thriller” genre. Motor City spent a significant amount of time on the festival circuit before finally getting a nationwide theatrical release. Despite some pretty positive word-of-mouth, the movie failed to generate much momentum. During its theatrical release, Motor City made a total of $2.94 million worldwide against a budget of $30 million.
During its opening weekend, the movie was shown in 1,600 theaters and while its unique storytelling style generated some curiosity, it didn’t last long, nor did the slight interest it garnered result in ticket sales. The movie takes place in 1970s Detroit and stars Ritchson as John Miller, who has his whole life wrecked after he falls in love with a local gangster’s girlfriend.
According to a report from AOL, Miller is framed for a crime he didn’t commit and is sent off to prison, though he eventually returns and his only focus is on getting even with those who set him up. Reviews for the film were mostly positive, with Motor City having a Rotten Tomatoes audience score of 69% and a critic score of 65%.
The box office bomb went down about the same time that Ritchson managed to alienate a huge portion of his viewing audience by ripping into President Donald Trump and those who support him while making rounds on the podcast circuit to promote his film. In appearances made on both the Armchair Expert podcast and Happy Sad Confused, Ritchson called Trump a rapist and claimed he was “all up into 13-year-old girls.”
This is a reference to a claim made in the infamous Epstein files where a woman claims she was introduced to Trump by Jeffrey Epstein in 1984 and that he forced her to perform a sex act on him. There is no actual evidence to suggest the claim is in any way true, nor has the president ever been brought up on charges of wrongdoing.
As a result of the attacks against the president and his MAGA base, many conservatives began calling for a boycott of the actor and the projects he is involved with, which includes both Reacher and Motor City. Many conservatives believe mega Hollywood stars like Ritchson should avoid being too outspoken about politics in order to avoid alienating large swaths of their audience.
"*" indicates required fields
Motor City took an unusual approach to storytelling, opting to avoid filling scenes with lengthy bits of dialogue, allowing the action, visuals, music, and performances of the actors to do all the storytelling. The film made its debut at the Venice Film Festival in August 2025 before RLJE Films gave it a nationwide release.
Featured Image: screenshot from embedded video