President-elect Donald Trump has appointed Jon Voight, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone as “special ambassadors” to Hollywood, aiming to boost domestic production of films and TV shows as the entertainment industry increasingly chooses to film in other countries.
“They will serve as my special envoys for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost so much of its business over the past four years to foreign countries, to a place bigger, better and stronger than ever before!” Trump books Thursday in the Social Truth publication. “These three extremely talented people will be my eyes and ears, and I will do what they suggest. It will once again be, like the United States of America itself, the Golden Age of Hollywood!”
The letter suggests that Trump may intervene in the flight of productions away from the country and to other locations with more generous tax incentives for films and TV shows. Other countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, are steadily enhancing their programs to attract Hollywood productions.
One solution might be federal production tax incentives, which several industry trade groups have lobbied for in recent years.
It is still not known specifically what roles the actors will play in promoting production in the country.
The announcement comes after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a budget earlier this month that more than doubles the amount of tax breaks California, a Hollywood stronghold, offers for movies and TV shows from $330 million to $750 million annually. The expansion would provide up to $3.75 billion in tax credits to the industry over five years starting in 2025. The support would be the most generous offered by any state except Georgia, which has no cap on the amount it gives to production. Every year.
In recent years, the UK has emerged as one of the major destinations for feature films. Films filmed there include last year Jurassic World 4 (Amblin Entertainment, Universal Pictures), Next Mission: impossible Installment (Paramount), The Fantastic Four: The First Steps (Disney) and Dead Man’s Wake: A Knives Mystery (T Street Pictures, Netflix). Its tax incentive program is designed to allow those productions to receive a cash rebate on the salaries of Scarlett Johansson, Tom Cruise, Pedro Pascal and Daniel Craig, among others, provided those costs are incurred in the UK. The country has a very broad definition of qualifying expenses, allowing payments to non-UK residents to be taken into account when calculating the incentives, although tax relief is capped at 80% of costs.
Meanwhile, Canada and Australia have become hotspots for visual effects and post-production work, with both countries providing more than 30 percent.
States aim to compete for Hollywood dollars by making production tax credit programs more attractive. Last year, Illinois passed revisions to allow games, national talk shows, and competition-based programs, among other reality TV shows, to qualify for tax incentives.
If the government passes federal tax incentives, production companies will likely be able to stack that credit with state subsidies.