Alex P. Keaton Sparked the Writer Behind Young Washington Hit

Diederik Hoogstraten watched Michael J. Fox play Alex P. Keaton on a black-and-white television in Holland and later co-wrote the Angel Studios hit Young Washington, which has already cleared $45 million domestic on a $20 million budget. The Dutch-born screenwriter told Daily Wire host Andrew Klavan that the 1980s sitcom character opened a clandestine door to different ideas about Ronald Reagan, America and freedom.

That personal thread now sits inside a larger historical pattern. Family Ties once smuggled a joyful young Republican into living rooms during the Reagan years. Today an alternative studio lane is delivering founding-father stories past the usual gatekeepers to audiences that still treat those stories as normal.

The Sitcom Character Hollywood Never Planned

The creators of Family Ties never intended the family’s oldest son to dominate the show. Alex P. Keaton, played by Fox from 1982 to 1989, became the breakout. He idolized Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and Milton Friedman. He preached smaller government and supply-side economics while his hippie parents, former Peace Corps liberals, tried to keep up.

• Young Republican who carried a briefcase and read The Wall Street Journal
• Heroes included William F. Buckley Jr. and Gerald Ford alongside Reagan
• TV Guide later ranked him No. 17 among the 50 greatest TV characters of all time

The series captured a real 1980s cultural flip: a conservative younger generation rejecting 1960s counterculture. Fox’s performance turned that tension into weekly comedy and made the actor a star. For a kid in a socialist country, the signal landed differently.

A Black-and-White Set in Holland

Hoogstraten’s parents were “woke before the woke was a word.” They were ultra-progressive in a socialist country. He rebelled. “That didn’t line up [with me],” he told Klavan. Watching Fox as Alex felt like forbidden fruit.

“Watching [Michael J. Fox as Alex P. Keaton] on a little black-and-white television back in Holland because my mom wouldn’t allow a color TV. That was capitalism,” Hoogstraten said. “Alex P. Keaton brilliantly with joy showed me, ‘oh you can think about Ronald Reagan and America and the world in a very different way. It felt very clandestine to watch that and to develop my own ideas.”

When he later reached the United States the place felt like home. He became a U.S. citizen eight years ago. “Coming to America felt like a sense of liberation.” That feeling drew him to the founding era he had known only lightly.

How That Path Led Straight to Young Washington

Hoogstraten co-wrote Young Washington with director Jon Erwin and Tom Provost. The film follows George Washington from roughly 1753 to 1755 through the French and Indian War, the Jumonville affair, Fort Necessity and the Braddock expedition. William Franklyn-Miller stars as the young Washington. Supporting turns come from Ben Kingsley as Robert Dinwiddie, Andy Serkis as General Edward Braddock, Kelsey Grammer as Lord Fairfax and Mary-Louise Parker as Mary Ball Washington.

Angel Studios released the picture on July 3, 2026, timed to America’s 250th anniversary. It opened to roughly $19.4 million and finished the holiday frame near $20.8 million, the studio’s strongest live-action debut. The domestic box office near 45.5 million has already more than doubled the production budget. Audiences awarded it an A CinemaScore; 92 percent scored it positively on the official site.

Critics split between praise for the battle sequences and charges of simplified heroism. Viewers in the middle of the country showed up. One widely circulated breakdown noted that 47 percent of the audience was over 55, Utah led theaters, and roughly two-thirds of the gross came from the heartland. The numbers line up with the Angel largest live-action debut numbers already reported for the holiday frame.

The Narrow Lane That Keeps Expanding

Hoogstraten sees a workable path around traditional Hollywood. “It’s a very narrow lane, but there is a really good lane in Hollywood,” he said. “There’s a growing number of people, including everyone involved with Angel Studios in Utah and Wonder Project in Austin … solid people you want to work with who are not giving up on Hollywood.”

The Angel and Wonder Project partnership announcement framed the film as a collaboration between a values-based distributor that amplifies light and a studio whose mission is courageous stories that restore faith. Wonder Project is led by CEO Kelly Merryman Hoogstraten and founded with Erwin. The same ecosystem has delivered earlier audience hits and is already developing further titles. The pattern echoes earlier Angel projects that found viewers Hollywood often overlooks, including the Angel Studios Reagan-era project pattern.

Key studio signals so far:

• $20 million budget recouped in the opening weekend alone
• Strongest Angel live-action three-day start on record
• A CinemaScore and 92 percent audience score on the official Young Washington film page
• Sequel titled 1776 already green-lit in public comments

Prejudice Still Shows Up at Dinner Parties

Hoogstraten does not claim the old industry has vanished. “Yes, I love America, and sometimes if I’m at a dinner party in L.A. I’m made to feel shame for that, but when I talk about this movie with anyone in the middle of the country, I realize we’re in the majority still. This is normal,” he said.

Coming to America felt like a sense of liberation. So, going back to the founding of this country and the ideas at the root of it, which I knew only very little about, was such a gift and a privilege because I get to understand it better every day as we keep going on these projects.

That is Hoogstraten speaking to Klavan about the privilege of the work itself. The same love of country that once felt clandestine on a Dutch black-and-white set now fuels scripts that reach millions.

1776 Already Has a Title and Momentum

Days after the opening, Erwin confirmed work on a follow-up chronicling Washington in the Revolution. Wonder Project posted a teaser asking the question everyone was asking. The Wonder Project sequel tease post drew heavy engagement. Hoogstraten’s own arc supplies the through-line: an immigrant kid who absorbed American ideals through a sitcom character now helps dramatize the man who held those ideals together at the start.

Family Ties once proved a right-leaning protagonist could become appointment television inside a liberal industry. Young Washington and the lane around it are testing whether founding stories told without modern scolding can still fill seats. Early returns say yes. The black-and-white set in Holland was only the first transmission.