As Donald Trump wants to introduce tariffs for films and TV shows made outside America, there’s a chance emerging to reset parts of the entertainment industry.
There’s a line in 1988’s Die Hard, where the villainous Hans Gruber is – spoiler light! – looking to smoke out John McClane. As part of that, into the frame comes the coked-up (in two senses) character of Ellis. It’s a beautifully played moment in a much-loved movie, and Alan Rickman’s Gruber ultimately declares to McClane that “sooner or later, I might get to someone you do care about.”
Following the second coming of US President Donald Trump has been a bit like that for many. He appears to be throwing darts at an assortment of targets, in an attempt to provoke a reaction. If he’s not irked you yet, rest assured he’s going to keep trying, and is likely to eventually find something to get a response. Judging by headlines over the last 24 hours, he’s hit paydirt again.
Trump has made two pronouncements about Hollywood since he was re-elected to office.
The first was treated with a smirk as much as anything else, when he announced – via social media – that he was appointing Jon Voight, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone as his special envoys to Hollywood. “They will serve as Special Envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries, BACK—BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!” Trump jabbed, his Caps Lock key as able as ever. We talked about this a bit more, here.
But it’s worth remembering that this was as much a surprise to Gibson, Voight and Stallone as it was to us. Gibson was the only one to immediately respond, stating “I heed the call. My duty as a citizen is to give and help and insight I can.”
Thus far, in the near four months since the trio were appointed, all they’ve managed between them is the release of Gibson’s latest directorial feature, Flight Risk. The most notable factor of which was how the poster managed to hide the fact that Mark Wahlberg’s character in the film has a bald bonce.
The second pronouncement therefore, that Trump’s random tariffs selector had landed on movies, perhaps wasn’t a massive surprise. He was famously irked when Parasite won a Best Picture Academy Award, and has made clear his desire for more films such as Gone With The Wind instead.
Still, a lot of feathers were nonetheless ruffled when he posted over the weekend that “I am authorizing the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands. WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”
The threat, and in turn the opportunity, is that nobody quite knows what he means. You may well assume that he includes himself in that. But then the intent if anything was to lob a metaphorical grenade in the hope it generates headlines, and here we are.
Taken at absolute face value, a 100% British film like The Ballad Of Wallis Island has recently opened in the US (or perhaps, given Trump’s particular targeting of them with tariffs, The Penguin Lessons might be a better example.)
A film like The Ballad Of Wallis Island, shown in an American cinema, would attract the tariff, a cost which presumably in the end would be passed on to the consumer. That, or either the cinema chain or distribution company somehow has to entirely absorb it, which is unlikely. In theory, this could lead to a menu of films at an American cinema with wildly differing ticket prices. Cinema, as we’ve explored here, already feels like it’s becoming past time for the better off.
And it doesn’t take long to get into grey areas. The upcoming Avengers: Doomsday is one of the biggest movies currently in production. It’s a Disney film, paid for with American movie, yet it’s also currently shooting at Pinewood Studios, just outside of London. London, as far as Trump is concerned, counts as a foreign land, as such that too would be hit by the 100% tariff. Never mind the fact that Marvel movies, which have filmed all around the planet, have brought many, many billions into Disney coffers in the States. Under the letter of the social media post, Avengers: Doomsday will attract an invoice.
None of this, though, addresses the symptoms of American production.
The cost of shooting films in America, particularly Hollywood, has led studios to seek locations and facilities elsewhere on the planet. Furthermore, if you’re making some degree of globe trotting film, such as a new Jason Bourne movie, is that now required to be 100% set in America, or require geographic locations to be built on a backlot? James Bond is now technically being paid for with American money. Does the next Bond movie need to consider Illinois and Denver, for instance, for a future 007 adventure? Or other American towns and cities, where a tariff bill won’t come as part of the budget?
Also, on a picky point: there’s a 100% tariff being applied, but on what? The production budget? The ticket price? By what measure is a tariff being calculated in the first place?
Trade bodies around the world are responding to all of this, making the kind of noise the pronouncement was presumably intended to make. There’s also panic amidst Hollywood high-ups that one of America’s biggest exports is about to be hit, and a lot of uncertainty has been thrown into an industry that wasn’t short of challenges in the first place.
Should Trump go through with his plan at apply tariffs, then it’s a given that other nations, at least those with relatively strong spines, will reciprocate in some form. The problem here that America faces is that its movie and TV exports far outweigh its imports. Bluntly, it’s got the most to lose should tariffs be levied in response.
There’s a lot of detail that, assuming any of this gets off the launchpad, needs sorting out. In the meantime, there’s doubt and concern for the many people employed by these industries, who have been caught up in Trump’s latest whim.
Perhaps what there also is, though, is opportunity.
A second piece of news has been overshadowed here in the UK by the announcement of Trump’s latest tariff wheeze. Namely that the UK government has firmly rejected a recommendation for a streamer levy.
The idea was to mirror something in place elsewhere in Europe, whereby a small charge is taken from streaming service subscriptions, that’s then reinvested in local productions. It’s not an unusual idea, but it’s not on the agenda here, in spite of strong recommendations. But there’s politics involved.
The UK government hasn’t, thus far, particularly stood up to Donald Trump’s administration, and adding a levy for US streamers was hardly likely to get the current occupant of the White House to apply less bronzer. Keeping the UK on a favourable side of any strop appears to be our government’s current strategy.
But it doesn’t seem to be do doing a lot of good, from the outside looking in. Specific to streamers, and in a comment that’s not dated well, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told Variety that “we’re really excited about the prospect of attracting more investment into the UK, particularly the big streamers have significantly increased the amount of content that they make in the United Kingdom.”
She added that “we don’t want to do anything to deter that investment. We want to make the UK the most attractive place in the world to invest.”
And yet here we are, with others to a degree taking matters out of her hands.
Inadvertently, Donald Trump has handed the UK government an opportunity. After all, the three biggest subscription streaming companies operating in the UK are Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+. These are all American companies who have invested heavily in UK production. There is an applecart that, understandably, the government doesn’t want to upset. But perhaps someone’s just upset that for them.
What Trump’s actions have done, and appreciating it’s still pretty much a certainty he won’t follow through with them, is threaten ongoing American investment in British film and TV production. That it’s allowed a substantial doubt to creep in. With Trump in the White House for another three and a half years, it’s hard to imagine policy is going to get any more sympathetic. Thus, might this be the moment to at least carve out a tranche of investment that at least offers some protection to local film and TV making?
American studios may not want overseas production facilities as much, if their strategy is to stay on the right side of Trump (there doesn’t appear to be too many people in positions of power standing up to him, from where I’m sitting.) But they do still want overseas money. Hollywood is, in fact, dependent on non-US box office takings and income for its movies and TV shows.
If Trump is determined to reset that relationship, then perhaps others should take the opportunity to reset the relationship in kind. Suddenly, something akin to a streamer levy might just be a smart, long-term tactical move, to make British screen culture less reliant on a partner that now seems more erratic.
Trump is using ‘national security’ as part cover for what he’s up to. Others need no such reasoning.
Going back to Die Hard, there are plenty of actions Trump has taken that’ve motivated people to react. But there is also a sense that the Hollywood issue has got to something else people care about. That Hans Gruber might have been right there (to continue the analogy, the fifth Die Hard film cosies up to Russia a bit and… no, I’ll leave it.)
Appreciating we’ve seen no details (cynically, you might suggest we’re never likely to), and nor do we know what Mel, Sylvester and Jon have to say about it all (although Voight has submitted a plan over the last week, which some believe to be the source of the tariff approach), Hollywood’s place at the heart of cinema is unlikely to be enhanced by the last few days. Already, some of the biggest hits of the year have barely touched US cinemas. Furthermore, the people likely to be affected by the unnecessary uncertainty all this has caused are at the bottom of the food chain: freelancers, low paid employees, the people on the less glamorous side of the industry.
But they appear to be collateral damage.
Hans Gruber’s plan had collateral damage, too. It wouldn’t succeed, but it was thought through, clever, and even lobbing in a bit of culture when Beethoven started blaring out. I’d suggest that Trump’s plan is less thought through, though, and likely to fizzle out when he finds another target. Yet, by then, it might already have done its damage – and it’s worth the international industry responding now, to mitigate some of that, and perhaps set films and TV on a slightly different course.
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