On-location filmmaking in Hollywood dipped to its lowest level since tracking began 30 years ago (excluding the COVID year of 2020) in Gavin Newsom’s California, and President Donald Trump wants to do something about it. On Monday, he announced a 100 percent tariff on all movies made outside of the United States. Posting to Truth Social, the president said our movie business has been “stolen” from us:
The industry’s trade mags like Variety were quick to huff and puff about the move:
It’s unclear what reignited the proclamation, but Trump made a similar declaration in May because he deemed foreign productions a “national security threat” to the American movie industry, adding that they not only draw filmmakers out to other markets but also bring “messaging and propaganda” into the United States. There was uncertainty at the time about whether the president had the authority to institute such a tariff or how it would be implemented.
Not surprisingly, Democrats were quick to froth at the mouth, and Gov. Gavin Newsom, who seemingly has no answers on how to fix his declining state, quickly did what he does best—issue big-talking tweets:
READ MORE: Could One 'Actress' Usher in the Death of Hollywood?
Hollywood Still Isn't Getting Why Its Product Is Failing
The left can do their usual teeth-gnashing all they want, but Trump is right about one thing: production has fled California.
When screenwriter David Scarpa visits the great Hollywood studios these days, he is struck by what is missing. “It used to be you’d walk around those back lots and you’d see many people and they were very busy,” Scarpa muses. “They were like small cities. Now often you’ll walk around and have nobody else there. It feels empty. You definitely feel the absence of life on those lots.”
Like the once proud industrial factories of the midwest, the dream factories of southern California are in decline. Last year was the worst for on-location filming in Los Angeles since tracking began 30 years ago apart from pandemic-hit 2020. Of all the TV shows and feature films that North American audiences watch, only one-fifth are now made in California.
Although Newsom slammed the idea, he too has been trying to stop the bleeding and signed a bill over the summer that would double the state's film credit from $330 million to $750 million.
As RedState has written about extensively, Hollywood's myriad issues also stem from the fact that they decided to focus on "woke" instead of great storytelling. No tariff can fix that for them.
While critics point out that a film tariff would be complicated because of the industry’s reliance on foreign financing and international deals, he’s right about one thing: the once vaunted Hollywood film-making machine is in tremendous decline, and the town is no longer humming as it once was. It would be very cool to Make Hollywood Great Again.
So many Hollywood "stars" seem to have gone off the deep end and devoted themselves to far-left causes that regular Americans have no interest in.
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