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Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Is Donald Trump's 100 Percent Tariff on Movies Even Possible?
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Bloodsport is one of Donald Trump's favorite movies. He told The New Yorker in 1997 that he often returns to the late '80s action flick, which follows a United States Army Captain (played by Jean-Claude Van Damme) who travels overseas to defeat his foreign opponents in an underground martial arts tournament. Critics have already explored at length why such a film resonates with the President. But after he announced a "100 percent tariff" on films that are produced outside of the United States this past weekend, it's fair to say that Trump likely doesn't know that one of his favorite 'American' films—starring a Belgian actor—was shot entirely on location in Hong Kong. People vote against their own interests all the time. They can certainly enact policies against them as well. Per the President's latest ramblings on Truth Social: 'The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death. Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated. This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! Therefore, 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!' As is often the case, it's difficult to say just what Trump means here. Will the tariff also affect American films that shoot overseas? Many upcoming American blockbusters including Dune: Messiah, Avatar 3, and Avengers: Doomsday, are all currently shooting in locations outside of the country. And according to The Hollywood Reporter, 'Roughly 45 percent of A Minecraft Movie's $875 million global box office haul—the $400 million it made at the U.S. box office—could theoretically be susceptible to Trump's "100 percent tariff" depending on when the President's policy goes into effect. As one might expect, a lot of Hollywood's money is made outside of Hollywood itself. So, let's break down some of the largest questions to Trump's newly proposed 100 percent movie tariff. It's no secret that filming in the U.S. is incredibly expensive. Outside of Atlanta, which has increased production due to the state's 30 percent tax break, it is far cheaper for studios to film overseas. Unless California plans to offer similar tax incentives, Trump's tariff will simply raise the cost of producing a film no matter where it chooses to shoot. It's a lose-lose situation. Without similar tax breaks at home, the tariff will only decrease the quality of films. Studios would likely adapt to other controversial cost-cutting measures such as more digital green screen shooting and AI. It seems safe to assume that the tariff would also affect series production (should it go into effect at all), including streaming services such as Netflix, Prime Video, Disney, and Max. Many of these services currently reap massive rewards from their global streaming base. Netflix's Squid Game is produced in South Korea, Disney's Andor shot in London, and HBO's The Last of Us films in British Colombia. The list goes on. Would streaming services pull their most lucrative shows off their platforms to avoid the tariffs, or would other shows simply suffer as a result by taking on even smaller budgets? According to The New York Times, a spokesman for the White House stated that "no final decisions on foreign film tariffs have been made." Furthermore, California Governor Gavin Newsom's office told Deadline that Trump has "no authority" to impose the tariffs. Per the outlet, "the initial reaction from the Governor's team is sure to take more solid form as more becomes known about what Trump really is up to and wants to see done." The real danger? Should foreign countries respond with their own 100 percent tariff to American films, I'm not certain that Hollywood could recover. According to Bloomberg, the U.S. exports nearly three times as much entertainment as it imports. If you thought Hollywood had enough of a problem recovering post-COVID, just wait until a successful film like Barbie—which grossed over $630 million in the U.S. and Canada, per BoxOffice Mojo—loses a significant chunk of the additional $810 million that the film earned in overseas box office sales. Outside of issues regarding budget cuts and a decrease in quality, retaliation is easily the largest deterrent. Worst of all? Trump could kiss any plans for another Bloodsport film goodbye. You Might Also Like Kid Cudi Is All Right 16 Best Shoe Organizers For Storing and Displaying Your Kicks
Time of India
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Donald Trump's 100% movie tariff: Will Indian and global cinema pay the price?
U.S. President Donald Trump has launched a controversial new front in his ongoing trade war, this time targeting international cinema. In a dramatic announcement made via his Truth Social platform, Trump declared he has authorised a 100% tariff on all films produced outside the United States. "The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death," Trump wrote, arguing that foreign countries are luring filmmakers away from the U.S. through attractive incentives. 'A National Security Threat'? Blaming international incentives for luring filmmakers abroad, he labelled the trend a 'National Security threat' rooted in propaganda. "Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood and many other areas within the U.S.A. are being devastated. This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! Therefore, 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!" However, the proposal has raised more questions than answers, like the definition of an international film, with modern productions like Billion dollar blockbusters 'Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning', 'Avengers: Doomsday', 'Avatar 3', 'Batman', 'Supergirl', shot across multiple countries. While the practicalities of enforcing such a tariff remain unclear, the move has ignited sharp reactions from members of the Indian film industry, raising serious questions about global film economics, cultural exchange, and the very viability of cross-border storytelling. Indian Filmmakers React: He's Killing Hollywood Mukesh Bhatt Reactions from India—a key international market for U.S. cinema and a rising global power in content production—have ranged from dismissive to deeply concerned. Veteran producer Mukesh Bhatt was blunt in his critique. 'Trump has become a joke,' he said. 'It cannot [go through]. It's wrong business." He also questioned the economic rationale behind such a move. "America is the most expensive country on the planet. And it makes no business sense for any producer. Forget Indian producers. Even a Hollywood producer can't afford to shoot in America." He argued that rather than protecting the American film industry, Trump's proposed tariff would backfire: 'You're not helping, you're destroying Hollywood.' Bhatt also pointed out the futility of such a move from an Indian perspective, saying, 'In India, we make films for the Indian diaspora. To release in America, I would need to shoot in America—which I never will.' This Will Hit Us Hard Vivek Agnihotri Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri, known for The Kashmir Files, highlighted how this policy could hurt Indian cinema's growing influence in non-diaspora American markets. Expressing concerns about the broader implications of such tariffs on Indian cinema's growing global footprint, he said, 'Indian films like Baahubali, RRR, and The Kashmir Files had just begun reaching wider audiences in the U.S.—not just the diaspora,' he explained. 'With a 100% tariff, a $10 ticket becomes a $20 ticket. Nobody's going to watch that movie. So it's going to impact us in a very big way.' Meanwhile, Bhatt disagreed saying, "South films have a major market in the Gulf, a major market in Singapore, a major market in the UK. It's a minimal 1-3%. That doesn't make a damn difference. In fact, he's going to harm Hollywood by putting this kind of conditions on producers." Superstars must speak up The director also expressed frustration over the lack of collective industry action, 'It's time film leaders, big studios, and our top stars—many of whom owe their stardom to the NRI market—speak up. If they're just busy taking airport selfies, I don't know where this industry is headed.' OTT: The Loophole or the Future? As for the booming OTT market, opinions diverge. Bhatt was quick to note that streaming platforms fall outside the realm of theatrical tariffs. 'When I watch a movie on OTT, I don't pay GST on a ticket. It's a different model,' he said, suggesting OTT subscription costs wouldn't be directly impacted. Agnihotri, however, cautioned against overreliance on streaming. 'People may turn to OTT or piracy, but that doesn't replace the theatrical revenue. That's how content-rich Indian films were gaining ground internationally.' Both Agnihotri and Bhatt acknowledged the possible knock-on effects of such a tariff on theatres and streaming platforms. "The only way these multiplexes are running mostly are because of the success of Bollywood movies, and if you'll take that away, multiplexes are also going to die in India," said Agnihotri. Reciprocal Fallout? If US is putting a 100% tariff on Indian films, we will also apply a 100% tariff on all Hollywood movies. Mukesh Bhatt Bhatt reminded that such policies might provoke retaliation. 'There's already a reciprocal understanding between the U.S. and India. If Trump taxes us 100%, we'll do the same. That could mean 100% tariffs on American films in India, which will hurt U.S. studios more.' He added, "If US is putting 100% tariff on Indian films, we will also apply 100% on all American Hollywood movies. So we will not have those so-called threats of American movies coming here and getting the benefit from our theatrical window. When you are killing our theatrical window in the US, we will do the same to you." Agnihotri called on Indian authorities to take a firm diplomatic stance, 'I hope the Indian INB Ministry and Commerce Ministry negotiate to ensure this is not applicable to India.' International pushback The proposed tariff has triggered speculation about retaliatory measures from other countries. Producer Bhatt questioned, 'Why should they not do the same? I'm an Indian producer, so I'm talking for India.' In a statement, China's National Film Administration said, "The wrong move by the US government to abuse tariffs on China will inevitably further reduce the domestic audience's favourability towards American films," Al Jazeera reported. It stated, "We will follow market rules, respect the audience's choice, and moderately reduce the number of American films imported." Caught in the Crossfire Whether Trump's threat ever becomes reality remains uncertain. Still, the very proposal has triggered an urgent conversation about cultural diplomacy, trade policy, and the fragile economics of global filmmaking. Producer Mukesh Bhatt summed it up concluding, "What Trump's doing now, is killing Hollywood, which he doesn't realize. That's a tragedy." Donald Trump Slaps 100% Tariff On Foreign Films; Calls Hollywood Decline A 'Security Threat'
Telegraph
11-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Henry Cavill as James Bond? The fake trailer creators trolling Hollywood
It's a longstanding feature of the movie-marketing business that some trailers bear little relation to the films which they trail. But in the last few months, a new version of this nuisance has emerged: trailers which bear no relation whatsoever to any films at all. If you've browsed through YouTube recently, you may have seen some. On the video-sharing platform last week, you could watch teasers for Bond 26, Spider-Man 4, Avatar 3, Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, Avengers: Doomsday, a third season of Squid Game, Dune: Messiah, a James Cameron adaptation of The Last Train from Hiroshima, and a legacy sequel to The Mummy reuniting Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. At the time of writing, all of these clips – posted by the innocuous-sounding Screen Culture channel – had accrued more than one million views between them. But there's a problem: none of the films they've supposedly been clipped from are real. Some are either in production or in the early stages of planning, though neither The Mummy reunion nor the Cameron Hiroshima project exist in any capacity. Yet in each case, there is around a minute and a half of footage for hungry fans to watch. So who, or what, is behind it? The answer – which in most cases, is clear within seconds – is generative AI, glued together and given the barest wisp of credibility with snippets from other films. The dialogue is cliched, vague and lifelessly delivered by soundalike speech programmes; the visuals garish and cheap, with the actors' faces typically either frozen in place or unsettlingly flumping around. (Poor Fraser, seen jogging through catacombs in The Mummy 4 teaser, moves like a water balloon.) But however obvious their phoniness may be, once you've clicked – and Screen Culture has nabbed its advertising revenue; its 1.38 million-subscriber reach can hit £15,000 per month – frustrated tuts don't count for much. And click we do, in our tens of thousands. For a brief spell after Marvel Studios posted the first trailer for their forthcoming Fantastic Four film, bogus versions of the trailer were racking up more views than the official one. Even a month on, if you search YouTube for 'Fantastic Four trailer', four of the top six results are fakes. Three are hosted by Screen Culture, all with preview images that promise juicy new details (a battle with the Silver Surfer, a clear view of new villain Galactus) that aren't present in the licenced Marvel materials. For Sam Cryer, founder and CEO of Intermission, the award-winning creative agency behind countless trailers ranging from Back to Black to The Crown, it's a perplexing development. And their fixation on story over emotion – 'telling viewers 'this is going to happen,' as opposed to 'this is how you're going to feel'' – is an especially depressing tell. 'Let's be honest: nobody is making fake trailers for [critically acclaimed Bafta Outstanding Debut nominee] Hoard,' he observes. 'Their audience is largely franchise fans who want to know what's coming up next, so dangling the prospect of a new piece of information is what brings those people in. And because there is already so much content out there, the AI has plenty of existing material to work with.' Fake trailers may have become a scourge, but they sprung from one of YouTube's most creative subcultures – with help from a certain series of teenage vampire romance novels. YouTube's emergence in the second half of the Noughties aligned with the wild international success of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books – and when the casting of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in the forthcoming film adaptation was announced in 2007, its ravenous fanbase weren't inclined to wait a year for their first glimpse at the unhappy couple. A series of 'fan trailers' were cobbled together from the young stars' previous work. Yes, in much of it, Pattinson's Edward Cullen was wearing a Hogwarts uniform. But it still gave a tantalising suggestion of how the pair might look on screen together – if not in the same shot. They were, by today's standards, endearingly amateurish. But they served their purpose, which was to meet their makers' and watchers' appetites for content that reality had thus far failed to provide. Other fandoms quickly followed suit. Mash together standalone footage of Iron Man, Thor and Captain America, and hey presto: The Avengers. Indeed, Hollywood's pivot to franchises gave the practice a new sense of purpose, as viewers could collectively imagine what might be coming in the instalments ahead. One early success story was Smasher, a channel founded in 2013 and run by the freelance video editor and digital marketer Rob Long. His 'concept' trailers resemble more evolved versions of those early Twilight mash-ups – speculative daydreams created from footage culled from multiple films and bespoke sound design and visual effects. He describes the process as 'a huge undertaking… they can take anywhere from days to weeks to complete. The creative payoff is huge, though, especially when people respond positively.' Take the 'saga trailer' he cut together before the 2019 release of Star Wars: Episode IX. Juxtaposing footage drawn from across the three trilogies with judicious match cuts, it moved some fans to tears – and yes, there's a reaction video of that very thing happening, posted by the channel DrowningInFandomFeels. For Cryer, such tributes and what-ifs are worlds apart from AI-made horrors. Rather, they share more DNA with the mood-boarding exercises trailer houses like Intermission are often asked to assemble by studios before a big film goes into production, where clips are pulled from similar features and assembled into a trailer-like proof-of-concept reel which anticipates the new project's aesthetic and tone. Indeed, many amateurs from the fan-trailer world have found success in the business. In 2005, a then-25-year-old video editor's assistant called Robert Ryang cut a trailer for The Shining that sold Kubrick's horror masterpiece as a mushy comedy. The result went viral. 'As a result, I was immediately promoted to editor at the post-production house where I worked, and it helped me book projects which I otherwise wouldn't have gotten with my level of experience,' he remembers via email. 'I still spent decades building a reel and getting more skilled with each project, but the Shining trailer definitely got the ball rolling much quicker.' Long also includes his concept trailers in his portfolio, and feels conflicted about generative AI's arrival in the space. 'It has definitely shaken things up, making certain aspects like generating visuals more accessible,' he concedes. 'But at the same time, it raises ethical questions about authenticity and how audiences interpret what they see.' It also allows unscrupulous creators to churn out twaddle at speed – and a fast content turnover is catnip for YouTube's algorithms. A concept trailer can take an individual video editor weeks to perfect, but viral outlets typically post up to four every day. Like Smasher, many of these channels have been around for years, but their embrace of AI has been like Hemingway's bankruptcy: gradual, then sudden. Over the past 18 months, elements like facial replacement and soundalike dialogue have crept in, but it was only towards the end of last year that the wholesale collapse into fractal gloop began. Channels found furrows that worked and ploughed them relentlessly. One called Dacuin specialises in young female Disney characters in compromising situations: there are trailers for Moana 3 in which Moana has been knocked up by Maui, and ones for Inside Out 3 in which teenage Riley appears in skimpy outfits. Another, Multiverse of AI, used AI to create a fake trailer for a live-action Simpsons film, starring Adam Sandler as patriarch Homer. Screen Culture, based in India, has a longstanding preoccupation with the sitcom Friends: an early move into 'parody trailers' in 2020, when the channel was still known as Screen Alcoholics, yielded such offbeat confections as 'Joker trailer but it's Chandler Bing from Friends', 'Joker trailer but it's Joey Tribbiani from Friends,' 'Birds of Prey trailer featuring Phoebe Buffay from Friends', and ' Morbius trailer but it's Ross Geller from Friends.' With AI now at its disposal, no depth is too ghoulish to plumb. Last summer, it offered viewers three trailers for a supposed Friends reunion film whose plot had been prompted by Matthew Perry's death, titled The One With Chandler's Funeral. Then there's KH Studio, which loves remakes, especially ones starring Henry Cavill. According to their recent output, the former Superman actor is about to appear in Spartacus, Highlander, Bond 26, a Gladiator reboot and Conan the Barbarian, as well as Marvel's Captain Britain. There's a world of difference, however, between seeing Cavill's face unconvincingly grafted onto Jason Momoa's body in the 2011 Conan film nobody saw, than watching, say, Smasher's concept trailer for a Warhammer 40,000 film – starring Cavill, obviously – which artfully magpies scenes from The Tomorrow War, Thor 4, Avatar 2 and the recent Space Marine video game. 'It's been a real struggle in our community over the past few years and a lot of us, friends included, have been cannibalised by these channels,' Long says. 'I've always been conscious about making it clear that my trailers are 'concepts', but the line between real and fan-made is blurring more than ever.' For professionals like Cryer, AI is, in a sense, a force for good – in that it compels the industry to think more creatively, and try new things that couldn't simply be triangulated from existing data. 'We have quite a set idea of what a trailer is, but in fact they keep changing,' he says. 'When I got into the industry they relied heavily on narration – the 'in a world…' or 'meet Steve' sort of thing. Then we had lots of text cards, which you don't get now. Then there were all the plaintive solo female vocalist covers of popular songs. Now we have 'bumpers' – those three-second trailers-for-trailers that play at the start to catch people's attention because the audience is now online, and no longer captive. But then these ideas cross over into other media and you have to come up with something new. And AI forces us to keep thinking.' Do the studios mind? 'They will have made peace with it to a degree,' he says. 'But problems arise when they swamp platforms to the extent that the real ones can't be found, or are done so badly that they negatively impact people's view of the original material.' As a way to gauge a product's overall desirability, though, it seems pretty sharp. 'Now there's a thought,' Cryer muses. 'A studio could test the market for a possible future blockbuster by putting out a fake trailer for it first.' In fact, in light of all of the above, the chances of this actually happening now feel inevitable. So I'm going to click 'like' on that Cavill Warhammer 40,000 clip, just in case.
The Independent
09-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
James Cameron fans hail divisive Avatar: Fire and Ash update: ‘Music to my ears'
Fans of James Cameron 's Avatar franchise have celebrated a divisive new update about the forthcoming third entry. The effects-heavy sci-fi film, titled Avatar: Fire and Ash, will be released later this year. Earlier this week, Cameron issued an update regarding the film's runtime, with the previous entry, 2022's Avatar: The Way of Water, having a hefty duration of three hours and 12 minutes. Speaking to Empire magazine, Cameron reflected: 'In a nutshell, we had too many great ideas packed into act one of movie two. The [film] was moving like a bullet train, and we weren't drilling down enough on character. So I said, 'Guys, we've got to split it.'' 'Movie 3 will actually be a little bit longer than movie 2.' Despite its controversial runtime, The Way of Water was a huge financial success, and currently ranks as the third highest-grossing movie of all time. While some viewers have claimed that the promise of an even lengthier runtime for Avatar 3 has put them off seeing it, many fans of the franchise celebrated Cameron's proclamation. 'Keep me in the cinema for 5 hours if you want,' one person wrote on X/Twitter. 'Music to my motherf***ing ears,' another wrote. 'You take as long as you need to tell us your story, Papa Jim. We'll be there, and our asses will STAY seated.' 'James you can make it 5 hours man we don't mind,' someone else commented. Another joked: 'Looking forward to the final AVATAR being a week long film.' The Avatar franchise is set on the planet Pandora, and follows a war between the human military and a native people known as the Na'vi. Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang and Sigourney Weaver star. In a three-star review of The Way of Water, The Independent 's Clarisse Loughrey wrote: ' Avatar: The Way of Water is, once again, a gauntlet thrown down at the feet of the industry. 'I can't say that I cared all that much about its story, its themes, or its characters, but its unimpeachable effects work made it feel like I'd locked eyes with the future. It's an achievement of such technological clarity that I'd instantly buy any flatscreen TV that was showing it in Currys.' Avatar: Fire and Ash is set to be released in cinemas on 19 December 2025.
The Independent
25-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Avatar 3 director James Cameron shares very early reactions to next movie
The first reactions to Avatar 3 have been revealed by director James Cameron. Cameron has been hard at work on the next instalment of his long-running blockbuster franchise after the release of sequel The Way of Water in 2022. The third film, titled Fire and Ash, might be 10 months away from release, but Cameron has screened it in its current state to 'a few selected people'. According to the director, 'the feedback has been it's definitely the most emotional and maybe the best of the three so far'. This response would have been a relief to Cameron, who has set almost impossible standards for the success of the third film. The director himself expressed concern shortly before The Way of Water was released, the director expressed concerns that the 12-year gap between the first film – but his worries were unfounded: the film became the third highest-grossing film of all time, surpassing the director's very own Titanic. The only two films ahead of the film are Avengers: Endgame, in second place, and the first Avatar film, which is the most successful film ever. All eyes will be on Fire and Ash 's box office numbers when it's finally released on 19 December. Cameron previously revealed what fans could expect from the third film, explaining that it will explore 'different cultures from those I have already shown'. In the first and second parts of the film, viewers were introduced to two different Na'vi clans, the Omaticaya and the Metkayina. In both Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water, the Omaticaya and the Metkayina clans are peaceful tribes and only resort to violence when their land is seized by humans. However, Cameron has revealed that the next film will see the fire side of these tribes, which 'will be represented by the 'Ash people'. He told France's 20 Minutes: 'I want to show the Na'vi from another angle because, so far, I have only shown their good sides,' he explained. 'In the early films, there are very negative human examples and very positive Na'vi examples.' In Avatar 3, we will do the opposite. We will also explore new worlds, while continuing the story of the main characters. 'I can say that the last parts will be the best. The others were an introduction, a way to set the table before serving the meal.' There will be two more Avatar films after Fire and Ash, and they will be released in December 2029 and December 2031, respectively.
