TCTTS said:

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That's already in the works and will certainly help if passed. I'm just saying, if Trump is actually serious about this, and wants production to return to New York, Atlanta, etc as well, that's probably the best solution. Not tariffs, which make absolutely no sense in this scenario.

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TCTTS said:

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For an informative, nuanced discussion on this topic, I highly recommend this just-released half-hour podcast episode. Most of us don't at all disagree with the issue Trump is highlighting. He's right in that we desperately need film and television productions to return to the states (L.A. specifically). But as with most things Trump, while he correctly identifies a problem, it's his chaotic/idiotic, bull-in-a-china-shop solutions that are often the issue. That said, if he and the industry are somehow able to arrive at a proper solution, like a federally-mandated tax incentive, more power to him…

New pod: So THAT happened. Trump's movie tariffs would be disastrous for Hollywood...BUT...there's a non-calamitous path forward here. We think. With @Lucas_Shaw. Listen! https://t.co/y007vAZz6Q

— Matthew Belloni (@MattBelloni) May 5, 2025

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An Opportunity Hidden in Trump's Movie Tariff Madness

Yes, the White House is already walking back a rant directed at the film and TV industry, and Jon Voight's press release about how to "Make Hollywood Great Again" was low on specifics. But is the president's desire to help the business that once revived his career really as awful as it sounds?

The proper response to the past 24 hours in Hollywood has, for sure, been holy ****. But maybe not for the reason you might think. Amid the sea of questions about Donald Trump's Sunday evening promise to levy a 100 percent tariff on movies "that are produced in Foreign Lands," three things are almost certainly true:

• Yes, a significant tariff scheme for film and TV would raise costs, lower production volume, violate World Trade Organization rules, and spark retaliation from other countries - all of which would be disastrous for a U.S. entertainment industry that dominates global competitors and produced a $15.3 billion trade surplus as recently as 2022, per an MPA report. Forget the Sinners copyright deal hysteria; a prolonged trade war over Hollywood product could be the actual"extinction-level event" those whiny studio execs have been warning about.

• No, the president didn't consider and/or care that his specifics-free post would cause a collective, industry-wide spit take that immediately injected more fear and anger into a community that is already pretty fearful and angry. That was kinda the point. A quick glance at my text messages from this morning: "WTF dude kill me now"; "My show is written and posted in L.A. but shot in Vancouver???"; "Post-production is a SERVICE right"; "Animation apply here? Any idea??" There are no answers.

• Trump is right about one thing: The U.S. movie industry is"dying a very fast death," at least the movie and TV productionbusiness, for the reasons we're all very familiar with at this point. Movies aren't goods, like cars or iPhones, but it's usually less expensive to make them elsewhere, and other countries are happy to offer taxpayer-funded give-backs. It is predatory. And it has worked for decades now. From 2022-24, there were 241 American movies released with budgets of $30 million or more, and only a third of those were shot in the U.S., per Luminate data. Look no further than Trump's "special ambassadors" Mel Gibson, who is about to shoot his new Jesus movie in Italy, and Sylvester Stallone, whose Expendables production log read like a Lonely Planet guide. Atlanta, which stole the Marvel movies from Los Angeles, just lost the next two Avengers pics to the U.K., which has become the soundstage location of record for studio tentpoles, just as Vancouver and Toronto largely replaced Sunset Gower and Television City for TV shoots in the 2000s. Disney's Bob Iger might talk publicly about loving L.A., but he'd happily ship 100-year-old Dick Van Dyke to Bulgaria for a Mary Poppins reunion special if it saved a little money. Everyone in Hollywood just accepts this now.

The Voight Agenda

As with most Trump proclamations, this one is likely just noise - another attention-seeking missile launched into the news cycle after spending the weekend in a Mar-a-Lago conga line with "special ambassador" Jon Voight and his manager, Steven Paul. Trump is using tariff talk to try to extract concessions from former allies, and there's no reason to believe the Hollywood tariffs aren't part of a broader war of words with countries like Canada. After all, the media spent Monday mostly talking about Trump "fixing Hollywood" (and possibly reopening Alcatraz??) instead of the cratering economy. Mission accomplished.

But… if this whole tariff blowup isn't just noise, what if it's actually an opportunity for Hollywood rather than a potential death sentence? Multiple times already, Trump and his people have walked back the tariff talk. This morning, the White House issued a statement with "no final decisions" and "exploring all options" language. Then Trump himself clarified: "I'm not looking to hurt the industry, I want to help the industry," he said, promising that his team would meet with Hollywood leaders to make sure "they're happy." (Maybe that's genuine; maybe Gibson had already delivered an expletive-filled, "sugar tits"-level rant on the phone.)

When the press release from Voight and Paul finally hit inboxes this afternoon with the plan to "Make Hollywood Great Again," the tariffs were positioned as relevant only in "certain limited circumstances" - almost an afterthought. I'm told that jibes with what MPA chiefCharlie Rivkin briefed his member studios last week while talking with the Voight team, and the Times noted that drafts of the two documents that emerged from Voight's meetings around town made no mention of tariffs. Instead, the 86-year-old Midnight Cowboy star is focusing on a proposed combination of tax code changes and federal incentives, co-production treaties, and subsidies for infrastructure. All buzzwords until we see specifics, but not hardcore tariff language. "We look forward to working with the administration, the unions, studios, and streamers to help form a plan to keep our industry healthy and bring more productions back to America," Voight said in the release.

Assuming that's not total B.S. - a big if these days - think about how much of a vibe shift this would be from the White House, which has repeatedly villainized Hollywood. Going after entertainment and media elites is a pretty major pillar of the MAGA movement - Google "Trump vs. Hollywood" for some of the greatest hits. Now Trump wants to be the industry's savior, even as he tries to decimate arts institutions like PBS and NPR? Maybe Voight, in proclaiming that the president "loves the entertainment business," momentarily forgot that the same company that owns Paramount Pictures also controls CBS News, which Trump is suing for $20 billion. Disney is a perpetual punching bag. Universal, which Voight "looks forward" to working with, is a sister company of nemesis MSNBC.

Whatever. Nothing makes sense, and for some reason, Trump thinks that publicly declaring his desire to "help" Hollywood is good politics. He's already won statements of interest from industry unions, most of whose members have suffered amid the production exodus to jurisdictions beyond their reach. "We look forward to learning more about the specifics of the plan announced by the President and to advancing a dialogue to achieve our common goals," Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the SAG-AFTRA leader, said today. IATSE praised the effort to "level the playing field." Trump, ever courting the Teamsters for their populist bona fides, must have loved those quotes.


Tax Code Questions

But is this actually good politics - specifically, this idea of revising the tax code to incentivize U.S. production? If the U.K. offered, say, a 40 percent rebate, could the U.S. then offer a base incentive that would encourage various states to supplement with their own in order to remain competitive globally? That would be a lot more effective than either of the incentives bills under consideration in California and New York, both of which are already considered improvements to the status quo. It would be amazing for everyone who works in Hollywood and enjoys seeing their families.

But this would require Congress to get involved, which seems like… a stretch. Not surprisingly, Adam Schiff, the U.S. senator who formerly represented the L.A. area in the House, has been lobbying for just such a federal incentive. But can you imagine Republican legislators, amid record deficits, adding a new tax break that exclusively helps Hollywood people? Where's the upside in red states? Maybe they see an opportunity to take a shot at Democrats like Gov. Gavin Newsom, whom Trump labeled "incompetent" today, or simply bring him to his knees. Tonight, Newsom announced that he wanted to work with the administration to create a $7.5 billion federal film tax credit - a well-timed announcement for the twin purposes of trolling Trump and currying favor with Southern Californians, but one unlikely to lead to momentum with the MAGA crowd.

Newsom's new pitch only highlights that California and L.A. politicians have incompetently sat on their hands for years as the region's signature industry dwindled in plain sight, even as its leaders and unions donated millions to their political campaigns. And yet, that's probably not enough of a reason for Republicans to vote to start subsidizing Hollywood workers like they're farmers.

I've been emailing with Schuyler Moore, the veteran film finance lawyer, who was just as shocked as you and I were when he saw the tariff "proposal" last night. He agreed the tariffs idea is stupid, and that a federal incentive package is a long shot, and he reminded me that there's already a production incentive in Section 181 of the Internal Revenue Code. But it's a tax deduction (not a credit) of up to just $15 million in U.S. spend, which Moore has called "worthless." Could the tariff conversation lead to support for a new, supersized federal tax credit? "I don't think it will morph into that," Moore wrote when I raised the possibility. "If it does, then it depends on what it morphs into. If it morphs into an uncapped Section 181 deduction, it is as useless as Section 181 is now."

So that's where we are. Everyone's freaking out about a potentially catastrophic tariff event that likely won't happen, and there's a potentially beneficial change to the tax code that could be a hidden opportunity in all this noise but also probably won't happen. Instead, Trump likely will move on to his next attention-seeking missile, which will dominate the next news cycle. Still, this whole episode is notable for the president's abrupt - if potentially momentary - shift from proud adversary of Hollywood and everything it represents to self-styled savior of the industry that made him famous in the first place. Certainly not what most of us predicted for the first year of Trump 2.0. Any kind of federal tax credit for movie productions would be a welcome and unexpected gift coming from this government. And even if it never happens, if this Trump vibe shift sticks, it could be a chance for Hollywood to capitalize on the chaos in other ways.

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TCTTS said:

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That's already in the works and will certainly help if passed. I'm just saying, if Trump is actually serious about this, and wants production to return to New York, Atlanta, etc as well, that's probably the best solution. Not tariffs, which make absolutely no sense in this scenario.

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TCTTS said:

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Exactly.

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YouBet said:

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Not real sure what he was trying to do here. China and India have pretty big industries now in their own right.....because they are huge countries. Nothing to really do about that. It's not like a ton of those movies get shown over here anyway especially the Indian ones.

Of note, the last time I looked something like 7 out of the top 10 highest rated action movies on IMDB are Indian movies that most people have likely never seen or even heard of.

I did notice the Oscars this year did away with the best foreign film category and combined those into one Best Picture category with American films which squeezed out a lot of American films that might have been nominated in the past. I wonder if that's what caused this? Sounds like Hollywood better start stepping up their game.

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