Hollywood might someday make a movie about Jimmy Kimmel’s week-long suspension for insinuating a MAGA voter killed Charlie Kirk or Stephen Colbert’s slow-motion “Late Show” cancellation.

The same Hollywood ecosystem has said little, if anything, about attempts to silence critics of the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Enter director/producer Michael Pack. 

He teamed with the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion section to make “The Lockdown Dissidents.” The mini-documentary recalls the scientists who challenged the nation’s pandemic protocols and faced fierce pushback as a result.

Public recriminations. Private punishments. Censorship.

Pack, the veteran documentary filmmaker behind titles like “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words” and “The Fall of Newt Gingrich,” brings clarity to the early days of the virus and the nationwide response.

The parties collaborate on documentaries that capture what Pack calls “misrepresented, under-reported or memory-holed” events from recent years. That fits the lockdown hangover all too well.

“Dissidents” offers a “perfect example,” of just such a story, he says. “People want to move on from COVID. ... it’s the biggest thing that has happened to America in the last decade or so, and it was a huge blunder. Many people suffered.”

The mini-documentary recalls early attempts to broaden the conversation around COVID-19. Respected scientists such Dr. Jay Bhattacharya co-created an alternative plan for the country to consider.

The Great Barrington Declaration argued against expansive lockdowns. Instead, the proposal called for protecting groups that were the most vulnerable while keeping society open.

His message? “Let young people go about their business, especially back to school,” Pack recalls. That put a target on Dr. Bhattacharya’s back, as detailed in the documentary.

The doctor faced public scrutiny from Dr. Anthony Fauci, who served during COVID as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, among others. 

The depth of those attacks may shock some viewers, and “Dissidents” brings the receipts. Even worse? Dr. Bhattacharya’s reasonable views, and those of others who were eventually proven correct about the virus, endured social media censorship.

“Even if they were wrong, should they have been deplatformed? The direct answer is no,” Pack says. “Especially in science, you can’t suppress counter views … it’s a basic free speech issue, and it’s even more important in science.”

He also said: "The government leaned on social media companies to shadow-ban them. … We have to make sure it doesn’t happen again."

The documentary explores how some European nations followed a Barrington-style approach and thrived, including Sweden. Some U.S. states, including Florida, soft-pedaled the lockdown restrictions with positive results.

“By the summer [of 2020, Florida officials] were planning to reopen the schools ... in some states it took years,” Pack recalls. And the rationale for the delay, which we now know hurt kids on an academic level, boils down to a single entity.

“You have to point to the influence on the teachers’ unions here. They would not let the schools open … California is a classic example,” he said, laying the blame partially on the teachers themselves. “They were enjoying being home. They wanted zero risk.” 

Instead, much of the nation followed the Draconian path blazed by China. America’s scientific model followed the blueprint established in Wuhan, China, which, ironically, is likely from where the virus first emerged.  

Former White House adviser Scott Atlas shares a chilling COVID anecdote tied to Fauci in “Lockdown Dissidents.” The public face of the pandemic said the American public needed to be "more afraid" to follow his guidelines. 

“That’s not an ethical way to conduct public health policy. That’s shockingly out in the open,” Pack says, but stops short of suggesting Team Fauci meant people harm. “In their minds, they were saving lives.” 

Instead, they convinced Americans to trade in their inalienable rights for perceived safety, Pack notes.

The veteran filmmaker made the film in part, to weave together disparate parts of the fading COVID era before collective memories recede.

“It’s amazing how quickly people lose the capacity to tell the whole story. Our [film] strives to fill that gap,” he says. “We made the film in the hopes of convincing people they will act differently next time,”

It doesn’t help that “career bureaucrats,” similar to those who egged on the lockdowns, still pervade the government, Pack says. The next test of the country’s civil liberties might be a deadlier virus or another national emergency.

Either way, those lockdown-style policies could come back.

“You always hope the results will be different next time. I’m not sure,” he says.