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“The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of Merlin” is proving that not only can conservatives make art, but they’re also extremely good at it.
The “Pendragon” series was initially released as a Daily Wire exclusive in January 2026, but demand for the show allowed it to find massive success on mainstream streaming services. Immediately after being released on Prime Video in the U.S., the series hit #1 in Fantasy TV, #3 in Drama TV, and #6 in All TV Series. The entertainment news hub The Wrap placed it at the top of their list for the Fantasy genre, beating out mainstream series like HBO’s hit “House of the Dragon.”
The show’s executive director and producer, Jeremy Boreing, is helping to shape one of the first great conservative cultural movements. Boreing helped found the Daily Wire in 2015, and has relentlessly advocated for conservatives to build culture instead of merely critiquing it.
“We don’t make films to win the next election,” Boreing told The Capitalist. “We make them because we’re called to create, and in creating something that is true, good and beautiful, we can shape the affections. That’s what conservatives, from Burke to Breitbart, had in mind when they’ve argued that culture sits upstream from politics.”
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Since 1960s liberalism swept America, the left has often claimed “the arts” as their own. Actors, artists, and musicians have primarily aligned themselves with the left. Conservatives have historically been driven out of the arts, but the phenomenon reached a breaking point during the 2010s and early 2020s. Cancel culture threatened the careers of stars like James Woods, Mel Gibson, and Gina Carano, who spoke out against transgender ideology or publicly defended their faith.
“If you make something rooted in truth and in the particular, then you cannot help but make a film that speaks to conservatives,” Boreing told The Capitalist.
In the Trump era, audiences are eager for truth. There is a hunger for conservative media, as the success of “The Pendragon Cycle” has shown. Movies and television shows have become far more explicit. Streaming services have allowed for restricted content to become normalized, and dozens of shows like “Euphoria” or “Game of Thrones” have resorted to hypersexualization, gore, and vulgarity. In response, audiences are looking for more virtuous art.
“The market for conservative consumers was never in doubt,” Boreing told The Capitalist. “People have always been hungry for stories about great ideas. Inheritance, memory, fidelity. Those are some of the oldest subjects in drama, and they also happen to be among the deepest conservative concerns.”
“Part of the solution also starts with conservatives being a little more generous with our own tradition,” Boreing said. “We became so politically successful in the 1980s that we mistook the bumper sticker slogan for the whole of conservatism. We need to be able to recognize our ideas when they appear on screen.”
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“Pendragon” isn’t afraid to be edgy or controversial. Its mission is to tell a story that paints a clear contrast between good and evil, between morality and wickedness, between heroes and villains. This juxtaposition is valuable because it creates tension, which isn’t always comfortable. The show is far from political, but it holds fast to truth, beauty, and goodness, which are the heart of conservatism.
Boreing’s brilliance lies in his decision to pursue the Fantasy genre. His choice to adapt “The Pendragon Cycle” came from a decades long love for its source material.
“I was captivated by Stephen R. Lawhead’s stories when I was a teenager and then spent much of the next 25 years thinking about how to bring them on screen,” Boreing told The Capitalist. “It’s a more gritty form of Christianity that’s taking root in a hostile world. I’m thrilled to see audiences react to it the way they have.”
The success of “The Pendragon Cycle” is a call to action for young creatives. After decades of being excluded from artistic movements, “Pendragon” proves that there is an enormous audience for traditional, well-crafted art.
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