Will life imitate art with ‘Civil War’?

A “Civil War” is coming just in time for the 2024 presidential election.

Director Alex Garland’s film of the same name is slated for an April 26 release date. The mind behind “Ex Machina” and the feminist horror film “Men” envisions an America in the not-so-distant future at war with itself.

Civil War | Official Trailer HD | A24www.youtube.com

Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, and Nick Offerman, the libertarian hero from “Parks and Recreation,” lead the cast. Dunst plays a journalist covering the mayhem, while Offerman embodies a God-fearing commander in chief.

Is there a better indicator from a Hollywood movie that he’s the bad guy?

The first trailer dropped last week, and it shrewdly depicted the story’s big beats without giving much away. What started the civil war in question? Why, according to the trailer, does it appear that red Texas and cobalt-blue California are on the same side?

If the recent argle-bargle over the trailer is any indication, the film’s release will spark endless social media broadsides. And, let’s hope, nothing more.

And what does Plemons’ character mean when he interrogates someone at gunpoint and asks, “What kind of American are you?”

Thoughts of previous movies savaging Christians (“The Purge” franchise) and the GOP (your choice of countless anti-Trump films and TV shows) rushed to mind.

Some conservatives recoiled at the trailer, including the invaluable Ace of Spades website and pundit Jack Posobeic, who dubbed it “predictive programming.” The term refers to the government or other powerful entities getting the public accustomed to something as catastrophic as a civil war through art.

The far-left Vice pounced and seized on select comments, suggesting a new alt-right-style conspiracy in the works without solid evidence beyond a few posts on X (formerly Twitter).

Any political thriller from Hollywood Inc. deserves suspicion from conservatives. Still, we’ve been here before.

A 2019 trailer for “The Hunt” sent conservatives scrambling for rhetorical cover. The thriller posed a provocative gimmick: What if liberals hunted down conservatives for sport? Think “The Most Dangerous Game,” starring latte-sipping NPR listeners.

That’s what many assumed from the film’s first incendiary peek.

The teaser sparked a sizable controversy, including stern words from then-President Donald Trump:

Liberal Hollywood is Racist at the highest level, and with great Anger and Hate . . . . the movie coming out is made in order to inflame and cause chaos. They create their own violence, and then try to blame others. They are the true Racists, and are very bad for our Country!

Trump didn’t name-check the film. The message came through loud and clear.

Universal Studios temporarily shelved “The Hunt” following a trio of mass shootings and the kerfuffle surrounding the film’s plot.

The movie, released roughly six months later after the culture cooled down, lived up to some of the advance billing. Yes, smarmy liberals were hunting conservatives to the death. It still smacked both conservatives and liberals around, with progressives facing the meatier uppercuts.

Conservatives should have held their collective tongues until the film reached theaters. You don’t negate cancel culture by embracing its worst tropes. Plus, if moviegoers robotically copied what they saw on movie screens, there wouldn’t be a soul left alive following four “John Wick” films.

“Civil War’s” theatrical debut happens in the late spring, months before the first presidential votes are cast. Its release date still overlaps with what promises to be a grueling, divisive campaign.

Could the filmmaker’s previous work or interviews suggest what he has in store for us with “Civil War?”

Garland penned the script for “28 Days Later,” one of the best of the modern zombie films and a story where animal activists, not the military, unleashed the undead-style plague.

“Ex Machina” served up a sobering look at robot technology that seems almost prescient given recent advances in AI.

“Men” delivered an anti-patriarchy screed overwhelmed by first-rate scares and original shocks.

These tea leaves are inscrutable, at best.

The furious response to the “Civil War” trailer isn’t difficult to explain. We’re living in deeply divided times, when even a film teaser can spark a war of words.

The context remains chilling.

Stores boarded up their windows in the days leading up to the 2020 presidential elections, fearing a new wave of far-left violence should Trump snag a second term. More recently, pro-Hamas protesters have run rampant in major cities with little police pushback.

It might not take much to spark a new wave of violence, given the cultural kindling sprinkled across the country.

If the recent argle-bargle over the trailer is any indication, the film’s release will spark endless social media broadsides. And, let’s hope, nothing more.

The last thing Americans want from “Civil War” is for life to imitate art.