Jon Stewart's 'Irresistible' Starring Steve Carell Skipping Theaters And Heading Straight To VOD

While a lot of big blockbuster movies intended for release this summer have been pushed back to a new release date, some of the smaller movies are heading straight to VOD. Jon Stewart's political comedy Irresistible falls into the latter category as Focus Features has announced the movie will premiere on VOD in June. And there's a new featurette about the film, too.

Jon Stewart is back with his sophomore feature as a director and writer after making his debut with Rosewater back in 2014. This time, Stewart is leaning more into his political satire roots with a story that follows Steve Carell and Rose Byrne as two political consultants at war with each other in the middle of a mayoral election in a small town in Wisconsin.

I'm not gonna lie: the featurette above is pretty terrible. It's clumsy, and the tone it's striking makes it feel like a movie from 1995. The kind of satire on display here feels obvious too, which I'm hoping is just because the movie is being marketed to as broad of an audience as possible without digging into the actual politics of a movie like this. Stewart is an expert on this kind of thing, and he does mention wanting people to consider why our political system has to heavily involve the media and money, so I'm hoping this is just a matter of the studio playing it safe and not wanting to drive off any prospective viewers.

This is the kind of smaller movie that would normally act as counter-programming while the blockbusters duke it out for the top spot at the box office. But with theaters closed right now, at least until July, and few theatrical releases taking advantage of a VOD performance, Irresistible might be able to find an even bigger audience than it would in theaters. And since Focus Features is owned by Comcast through Universal Pictures, you can bet it's only going to further upset the National Association of Theater Owners after the release of Trolls World Tour on VOD.

If you missed it before, you can watch the first trailer for Irresistible right here.

From writer/director Jon Stewart comes the comedy of a Democrat political consultant (Carell) who helps a retired Marine colonel (Cooper) run for mayor in a small Wisconsin town.

Irresistible stars Academy Award® nominee Steve Carell, Rose Byrne, Academy Award® winner Chris Cooper, Topher Grace, Natasha Lyonne, Mackenzie Davis, CJ Wilson and Will Sasso. Plan B Entertainment and Jon Stewart produced.Irresistible arrives on VOD starting on June 26, 2020.