Right-wing films big at the box office MOVIE INDUSTRY

It's 2016, and the skies over America's heartland have turned tornado dark, seemingly for good. The economy has suffered a total collapse, and Americans are hungry and fearful. Anarchy reigns in some urban areas.

Ever since President Obama, deep into his second term, withdrew U.S. forces from Afghanistan and Iraq, the whole of the Middle East has fallen under the control of al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Such is the future in "2016: Obama's America," which hit theaters in July. Produced on a modest $2.5 million budget, it's amassed at least $32 million at the box office, according to Rocky Mountain Pictures, the film's distributor.

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Although it may sound like the Hollywood adaptation of a dystopian, sci-fi graphic novel, "2016: Obama's America" ranks as the second-highest-grossing political documentary of all time in the United States. That's thanks to a vast, conservative-minded bloc of moviegoers whom producers, filmmakers and studios are racing to reach before they stream into voting booths in early November.

The film's unexpected popularity has raised expectations for a flood of reactionary, election-season movies that include "Runaway Slave," which features onetime GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain and a host of black conservatives inveighing against the tenets of liberalism; "Hating Breitbart," which chronicles the life of the late conservative pundit and Drudge-like Internet impresario Andrew Breitbart; and "Last Ounce of Courage," about a small-town Christian mayor, Marshall Teague, who refuses to acknowledge the separation of church and state, which earned $2.7 million over two weeks.

Due Friday is a sequel after the heart of a younger Paul Ryan: "Atlas Shrugged: Part II," the second installment of a trilogy adapted from the Ayn Rand novel.

"When you look at box office returns, especially for films that have political content, I think there is a huge audience that feels underserved," said Andrew Marcus, director of "Hating Breitbart."

David Bossie, president and chairman of the conservative advocacy group Citizens United, produced 2008's "Hillary: The Movie," a film that led to the landmark Supreme Court case Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, which cleared the way for corporations to spend unlimited amounts supporting candidates.

Bossie argues that this year's election season is especially rife with polemics thanks to Michael Moore, whose anti-George W. Bush "Fahrenheit 9/11" earned more than $119 million domestically in the summer of 2004, making it the highest-grossing documentary of all time.

At least one Obama supporter is getting in on the right-wing film game. Billionaire sports and media mogul Mark Cuban - who attended a $30,000-per-plate fundraiser for the president this year - partnered with Citizens United to distribute "Occupy Unmasked," a film critical of Occupy Wall Street.

"There has always been a market for partisan films," said Cuban, who notes that they aren't necessarily geared toward viewers who seek to have their votes influenced, but rather those who wish to have their beliefs reinforced.