Jon Voight made a splash in May when he pitched President Trump on a plan to save Hollywood, warning that the industry was at risk of going “down the drain like Detroit.”
But in the months since then, not much has happened.
Trump prompted an outcry when he threatened to tariff foreign-made films, and then quickly moved on.
But conversations are still taking place. Steven Paul and Scott Karol, independent film producers who have worked with Voight to “Make Hollywood Great Again,” are hopeful that a federal film incentive will be introduced in Congress this year.
“Just because we might not see things in the press, doesn’t mean people aren’t working hard behind the scenes,” Paul said in an interview on Wednesday.
Karol said the hope is that a federal incentive will be “introduced in a bipartisan fashion soon.”
Hollywood unions have long sought a federal incentive to counteract the tax credits offered by Canada, the U.K. and many other countries that have lured production jobs over the last few decades. The global production downturn that has hit the industry since 2022 has revived those discussions. But while California, New York and Texas have boosted their incentives, nothing has yet emerged on the federal level.
Rep. Laura Friedman, a Democrat from the Los Angeles area, has said she will back such an incentive. California Sen. Adam Schiff is also working on the idea, though no Republicans have yet publicly signed on, and Trump has not expressed his support.
In the meantime, a much more modest initiative has started to take shape on Capitol Hill. Earlier this month, a bipartisan group in the House and Senate introduced a bill to extend and expand Section 181, a tax deduction for independent film producers.
The deduction, first passed in 2004, allows investors to write off production costs immediately, rather than waiting for the investment to depreciate over several years.
The deduction is limited to $15 million per production, and is currently set to expire on Dec. 31. Hollywood unions and the Motion Picture Association have called on Trump to extend it and to raise the cap to $30 million, or $40 million for productions made in low-income areas. The extension was included in Voight’s draft plan to save Hollywood.
“It’s a beginning,” Paul said Wednesday. “You start somewhere, and it’s a very good beginning.”
Hollywood stakeholders have also called for reauthorization of Section 461, which allowed companies to carry back their net operating losses for up to five years. That provision, which expired in 2022, was particularly helpful to film companies who have uneven revenue streams, and could use losses in one year to cancel out profits in earlier years.
Karol said the idea of a tariff on foreign-made movies has not resurfaced in the conversations he’s been part of. Although, if a federal incentive were in place, it’s conceivable producers might face a penalty for choosing to go overseas.
“The president is very behind bringing production back to America and seeing our business healthy,” Paul said. “He stays committed to that.”
Source link
