Jonathan Majors Faces Backlash Over Controversial Speech in ‘Run Hide Fight: Infidels’

Jonathan Majors has been working diligently to revive his career following his 2023 assault conviction, taking on roles that demonstrate his ability to lead a major film. Earlier this year, his comeback included a significant return to theaters with ‘Magazine Dreams,’ a performance that garnered him some of the more favorable coverage he has received in quite some time.

However, his upcoming project is shaping up to be much more divisive. Majors has signed on to star in ‘Run Hide Fight: Infidels,’ a standalone sequel produced by Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire, which has sparked considerable controversy since its premise was unveiled earlier this year.

This controversy intensified this week with the release of an exclusive clip showcasing Majors’ character delivering a lengthy monologue about Islam to a college audience. In the scene, his character, a retired Delta Force officer, asserts that Muslims desire death and warns that immigration and reproduction will be used as strategies to undermine the West, rhetoric that has drawn immediate condemnation from Muslim advocacy organizations.

The film follows Majors’ character, Clay Saunders, a Delta Force veteran who returns to a college campus overtaken by radical Islamic terrorists masquerading as pro-Palestinian protesters. According to the film’s synopsis, these militants seek to impose Sharia law and execute anyone they label an “infidel,” leading to a violent confrontation between the terrorists and a group of students who ally with Saunders to resist.

After reviewing a transcript of the scene, two prominent Muslim advocacy organizations expressed their disapproval to The Hollywood Reporter. Sue Obeidi, senior vice president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council’s Hollywood Bureau, characterized the project as the anti-Muslim fantasy of Ben Shapiro and Daily Wire, a sentiment she reiterated in comments reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

Obeidi criticized the film for relying on outdated and misleading stereotypes about Muslims, hoping that audiences would see through its messaging rather than engage with it. Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, echoed these sentiments, labeling the project as propaganda and suggesting it reflects Shapiro’s disconnect from mainstream American audiences.

This isn’t the first time ‘Infidels’ has faced criticism. Since its trailer debuted this summer, detractors have accused the film of conflating pro-Palestinian activism with terrorism and reviving anti-Muslim stereotypes from the post-9/11 era, with some outlets describing it as openly xenophobic in both its marketing and execution.

Producer Dallas Sonnier has embraced this characterization, previously acknowledging the film as provocative and unapologetic about depicting radical extremists as its villains. This willingness to engage with controversy has made Majors’ involvement in the project a focal point in discussions about his broader return to the industry.

The film serves as a standalone sequel to 2020’s ‘Run Hide Fight,’ which revolved around a school shooting hostage situation and premiered at the Venice Film Festival to a much quieter reception. ‘Infidels’ takes a significantly different approach, shifting from a contained thriller to a narrative explicitly linked to current geopolitical tensions and campus protest movements.

Whether the backlash will significantly impact the film’s reception upon its release remains uncertain, but the reactions from advocacy groups indicate that ‘Infidels’ is unlikely to fade quietly. For Majors, taking on such a politically charged role adds another layer of scrutiny to a comeback that is already under close observation.

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