One of President Donald Trump’s “special ambassadors” to Hollywood has spoken — and has a plan to bring more production back to the U.S., or so he says.
After a period of silence on his role as a liaison between the entertainment industry and the White House, actor Jon Voight on Monday revealed his intentions for resolving so-called runaway production, or film and television productions fleeing the U.S. for more cost-effective shores.
That plan involves a combination of federal tax incentives, tax code changes, co-production treaties and infrastructure subsidies for theater owners, production and postproduction companies, according to a press release sent Monday by a representative for Voight and his business partner Steven Paul.
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The release made only brief mention of tariffs, which Trump in a Sunday social media post said he would apply to productions produced outside the U.S. Voight’s plan involves “tariffs in certain limited circumstances,” the release stated.
“The President loves the entertainment business and this country, and he will help us make Hollywood great again,” said Voight.
The Midnight Cowboy and Heat actor added, “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.”
The plan is the result of months of meetings between Voight and his team and entertainment stakeholders, such as studios, streamers, unions and guilds. Voight and Paul confirmed that they met with Trump at Mar-A-Lago over the weekend, and the White House is “reviewing” their proposals.
The details from Voight come after a tumultuous 24 hours in which Trump announced a 100 percent tariff on films produced outside the U.S., before the White House walked that back a bit Monday morning, telling The Hollywood Reporter in a statement that “although no final decisions on foreign film tariffs have been made, the administration is exploring all options to deliver on President Trump’s directive to safeguard our country’s national and economic security while Making Hollywood Great Again.”
The news caught Hollywood off guard, and brought with it more questions than answers about how it would work and what would be subject to tariffs (let alone questions of legality). Hollywood unions, not surprisingly, seemed open to the idea of government intervention, though SAG-AFTRA and the Teamsters had very different levels of enthusiasm when it came to tariffs in particular.
There may actually be bipartisan support for Voight and Paul’s proposal.
In a statement of his own Monday, Sen. Adam Schiff said that he was in favor of incentives to bring back filmmaking, although he pushed back on the idea of blanket tariffs: “I share the administration’s desire to bring movie making back to the United States,” Schiff said. “While blanket tariffs on all films would have unintended and potentially damaging impacts, we have an opportunity to work together to pass a major federal film tax credit to re-shore American jobs in the industry. I welcome the opportunity to work with the administration and my Republican colleagues to pass a globally competitive federal film incentive to bring back run-away production.”
Schiff has been discussing the possibility of a federal tax incentive with unions for some time.
Later on Monday, Voight released a video where he discussed his proposal to Trump. In the video, the actor said Trump “loves the entertainment industry business and wants to see Hollywood thrive and make films bigger and greater than ever before, as he says.” Trump also wants to see “productions come back to America and Hollywood,” Voight said.
May 5, 6:31 p.m. Updated with Voight’s video about his proposal.
