At times the documentary “America’s Burning” is scarier than any horror film.

It looks at the cultural and political divides that currently exist and posits how they could play out if things continue on their current path.

But its incendiary title has a double meaning, reflecting the country’s division as well as an America “burning with desire to bring back the American Dream.”

Austintown native Ian Michaels is the producer of the film, and he’ll do a Q&A with local filmmaker and podcast producer Johnny Chechitelli following a screening Monday at Regal Boulevard Centre.

It’s not his first time exploring this territory.

“We did another film called ‘Stars and Strife,’ which we sold to the Starz network,” Michaels said. “That was back in 2020, we were hoping to have a similar thing, where the film would become a talking point for people around the election. And the film came out, and it came and went. It was COVID, you know, and I think everybody was sort of focused on other things.”

Both films were directed by David Smick, a macroeconomist whose book “The World Is Curved” predicted the 2008 financial crisis. Initially, he wanted to retool “Stars and Strife,” but they decided to do a second film focused on Smick’s theories that the current problems have been exacerbated by the shrinking of the middle class and how fixing that issue could ease other tensions.

“This guy gets paid obscene amounts of money to talk about the economy to people like George Soros and JP Morgan (Chase & Company), all these people and companies that you know,” Michaels said. “Why don’t we lean into what you know a little bit more than the first film, which was more centered around politics … They say write what you know, and it works.”

Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson (“Rain Man”) is an executive producer on the film, and they attracted another Oscar winner to narrate it. They hired a casting director, who was charged with finding potential narrators who might be “motivated by the cause,” Michaels said.

“We found some videos of Michael Douglas working for a company called RepresentUs, which is sort of like a bipartisan coalition. We were like, ‘That’s our guy.'”

They sent Douglas a link to the film, and he contacted them the next day that he was interested in doing it.

“He became an executive producer, and he’s been incredibly supportive of the project,” Michaels said.

Boulevard Centre is one of 100 Regal theaters nationwide that will be showing “America’s Burning.” It will be available to rent on platforms such as AppleTV, Google Play and Amazon starting Oct. 22. After that it will go to one of the streaming services and later ad-supported video on demand.

“It’ll all roll out between now and, probably, through the inauguration next year,” he said. “I think a lot of the issues that we’re dealing with are still going to be right in our face. I don’t think, because the election is happening in a month, that these issues are going to go away. I think they’re going to get, potentially, even ramped up.

“The whole goal of the film is just to create a platform where people can talk. That’s the big thing, having empathy for somebody on the other side of the aisle, being able to talk to each other like we used to be able to do.”

Michaels, who didn’t want to get more specific about his age than saying he graduated from Fitch High School in the ’90s, described himself as an aspiring jock in high school. He credited two things with setting him on his current path — getting cast in the lead of a play his senior year and being exposed to great movies by his high school girlfriend’s father, longtime Mahoning Valley radio voice Thomas John, who also did movie reviews.

After going to Youngstown State University for a year, he transferred to Loyola University in Chicago and then headed to Los Angeles to be an actor. One of his acting teachers in Los Angeles, actor Jeff Goldblum, praised his writing and he wasn’t attracting much acting work, so he decided to create opportunities for himself by writing, producing and starring in the low-budget feature “Here’s the Kicker,” which played the film festival circuit

“I realized there were so many people that were asking me, ‘How did you produce the movie?’ ‘Can you help me produce a movie?’ Nobody ever asked me about acting. The writing was sort of on the wall, and from there I started producing other friends’ films and so on and so forth and sort of made a career out of it.”

Michaels works on both documentaries and narrative features. The road trip comedy “For When You Get Lost” recently opened in Los Angeles after playing film festivals, and he’s producing a heist comedy called “Above the Line” that features Cedric the Entertainer.

“I would say it all comes down to character and story. If I’m drawn to the character, that’s the biggest thing for me. If it’s a documentary, it’s story. What good is the documentary doing? How is the documentary relatable? Where’s the emotion? Is this something that can help a cause?”

If you go …

WHAT: The documentary “America’s Burning,” followed by Q&A with producer Ian Michaels

WHEN: 7 p.m. Monday

WHERE: Regal Boulevard Centre, 24 Boulevard Centre, Niles

HOW MUCH: Tickets are $12.99 for adults and $9.49 for senior citizens and children and are available in advance through Fandango.