(Editor's note: This story has been updated since it was first published in January 2020 BC — before coronavirus.)

Comedian and filmmaker Jon Stewart takes on Wisconsin's, and America's, political divide, in his new movie "Irresistible."

Distributor Focus Features announced in January that the movie would open in theaters in the summer of 2020. (On May 22, Focus said it would premiere on demand instead; see below.) The studio calls "Irresistible" "a comedy about what happens when a small Wisconsin town becomes the main attraction of our political circus."

The trailer for the movie debuted on CBS' "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert."

How did Wisconsin's battleground status become fodder for a film opening in the thick of the summer movie season? Here's what we know so far about "Irresistible."

It's a star-studded metaphor

Announcing the movie's release date, Focus gave this plot summary:

"After the Democrats’ top strategist Gary (Steve Carell) sees a video of a retired Marine colonel (Chris Cooper) standing up for the rights of his town’s undocumented workers, Gary believes he has found the key to winning back the heartland. However, when the Republicans counter him by sending in his brilliant nemesis Faith (Rose Byrne), what started out as a local race quickly becomes an out-of-control and hilarious fight for the soul of America."

Carell's bid to, as his character says in the trailer, "road-test a more rural-friendly message," is further complicated by his own lack of experience with rural life — at one point in the trailer, he tries to choreograph dairy cows in a camera shot — and Byrne's do-anything-to-stop-him style.

"Twenty bucks says I do better with fear than you do with shame," she tells him.

The movie — which Stewart wrote and directed, and is listed along with Brad Pitt as one of the producers — also stars Topher Grace, Natasha Lyonne, Mackenzie Davis, CJ Wilson and Will Sasso.

Stewart has had Wisconsin on his mind for 3 years

Stewart basically pulled back from entertainment work after leaving his gig hosting "The Daily Show" in 2015. But in 2017, he reached out to Kathy Cramer, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor and author of "The Politics of Resentment," to get insights on the political climate in Wisconsin for a possible feature film.

Cramer's book, published in mid-2016, looks at the role disaffected rural voters had in Wisconsin's shift to the right after the Great Recession — a shift that some believe contributed to Donald Trump's winning the state in 2016.

According to a report in the Wisconsin State Journal, Cramer ended up spending the better part of a day in December 2017 with Stewart and an associate, who wanted to visit some of the places and people she visited while researching her book "just to get a better feel for the place," Cramer told the State Journal.

At the time, Stewart told Cramer only that his production company was exploring making a movie set in Wisconsin, and had "just a sketch of a script," the State Journal reported.

Wisconsin is being played by … Georgia

"Irresistible" is set in the fictional Wisconsin city of Deerlaken. (Closest thing might be Deer Lake, though it's a body of water in Polk County.) But filming of "Irresistible" began last spring in Georgia in Atlanta, Rome and Rockmart, a town about 50 miles to the west with a population of more than 4,000.

Casting calls in the Atlanta area called for a wide variety of extras in April and May 2019. The "Irresistible" crew had a lot of competition for talent: Atlanta magazine reported at the end of May that more than a dozen A-list productions were filming in the area at the time.

Some of the cast members, particularly Carell, found themselves posing for a lot of selfies during filming.

There's nothing from Wisconsin?

At this point, it's unclear how Wisconsin-flavored "Irresistible" will be.

There's no word yet if any establishing shots were filmed in Wisconsin (see also: "Bridesmaids"). There's literally a flyover shot in the trailer that could be Wisconsin, though.

At least one member of the cast knows what it's like to be in a fictional Wisconsin location. Grace, who based on the trailer is playing one of Carell's operatives, became a star as the lead teenager in the 1998-2006 sitcom "That '70s Show," set in the fictional town of Point Place, Wisconsin.

The movie's original release date might have been a tip of the cap to Wisconsin history

As a reader reminded me, the day "Irresistible" was supposed to go into wide relesae, May 29, was also be the 172nd anniversary of Wisconsin's becoming the 30th state in the union in 1848.

It likely is just a coincidence that the movie is opening on Wisconsin Statehood Day — or is it?

The movie was due out in the middle of Wisconsin's 2020 election closeup

"Irresistible" was supposed to open between two busy political spotlight events — after the Wisconsin presidential primary, on April 7, and before Milwaukee was to host the 2020 Democratic National Convention July 13-16. (The convention has since been moved back to Aug. 17-20, but how, whether and when that will take place was till in motion as of mid-May.)

'Irresistible' would have had superhuman competition, but …

"Irresistible" had been scheduled to open nationwide on May 29. When it was first announced, that meant the movie would debut in one of the most jam-packed parts of the summer movie schedule.

Movies scheduled to open around its release date included "Fast & Furious 9" (May 22), "Artemis Fowl" (May 29) and "Wonder Woman 1984" (June 5).

Then the coronavirus pandemic hit and dropped a bomb on the summer movie season. The "Wonder Woman" sequel was pushed back to August, "Fast & Furious 9" moved to 2021 and "Artemis Fowl" was dumped onto Disney Plus for streaming in June.

And "Irresistible"? It was pulled from the release schedule altogether. On May 22, Focus announced the movie would debut in "premium" video on demand on June 26, bypassing theaters altogether.

Contact Chris Foran at chris.foran@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @cforan12.

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