OC Native Will Ferrell Won't Be Doing The Ronald Reagan Dementia Comedy: Report

By MARC TORRENCE (Patch National Staff)

Put down your torches. Drop your pitchforks. Will Ferrell won't be starring in an irreverent comedy about former president Ronald Reagan's battle with Alzheimer's Disease.

Ferrell's camp told Page Six that the comedy star had considered the script for "Reagan," but he ultimately won't be doing it.

Reports initially surfaced Wednesday that Irvine native would be playing Reagan when the movie was eventually produced.

The plot for "Reagan" reportedly goes something like this: After the then-president is hit with a severe bout of dementia during his second term, an intern is tasked with convincing him that he is actually just an actor playing the president in a movie.

That didn't exactly go over well with family and friends of Reagan, who fought Alzheimer's Disease, a common cause of dementia, late in his life.

Reagan's son, Michael, tweeted "Alzheimers is not joke...It kills..You should be ashamed all of you." His daughter, Patti Davis, wrote in an open letter on her website that "Perhaps if you knew more, you would not find the subject humorous."

An unscientific Patch Poll found that people agreed. Sixty-one percent of our voters said the movie was an outrage. Twenty-six percent said it was offensive but still could be funny.

Ferrell's people didn't say exactly why he wouldn't be doing the movie, but they distanced themselves from the movie's plot.

"While it is by no means a ‘Alzheimer’s comedy’ as has been suggested, Mr. Ferrell is not pursuing this project," the statement to Page Six said.