Donald Trump’s big idea to slap a 100% tariff on films made outside the U.S. might sound like a patriot’s dream -- but according to one Hollywood heavyweight, it’s actually a 100% career-ender for the movie biz.
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00:00This is mind-blowing that so many movies are being shot outside the U.S. because it's cost
00:10prohibitive to do it here, especially in Hollywood. So how do you go forward in this industry with
00:17this? Well, first of all, I've just started to put this through my thinking cap to try to figure
00:22out all the variables because it makes it incredibly impossible to have a film industry
00:28with these kind of locks on your hands. The money thing is a big issue. We can talk about that,
00:36but it's really the creative thing. I thought about it. I was thinking about which movies could
00:40you make. There are American movies like Crazy Rich Asians. It's an American movie. It's produced
00:46by Americans. It was financed by Americans. It had American stars and a couple of English people.
00:51It had an American director who did Wicked. You can't shoot that in San Francisco.
00:58You know, it's just not possible. So everybody would not have that. They would not have Wicked.
01:03They would not have Crazy Rich Asians. And it's really a silly idea. By the way, I know you have
01:09questions for me, but the biggest thing for me is, of course, now every country in the world
01:14is going to say, OK, we give you five movies a year, maybe five television shows for Amazon.
01:21That's really nice. There's my alarm. But you sell us $23 billion worth of stuff, but we're going to
01:32put 100% tariff on that. Is this really going to have the effect that President Trump thinks it is,
01:38which is to bring everyone back to the U.S. to make their movies?
01:41No. No. It's much too complicated for me to be able to answer you in a couple of seconds
01:47how that can't work. But it can't work because the way the business works is international.
01:55Mel Gibson, who I believe, I'm not sure, I think he's Mr. Maga, but he did Passion of the Christ.
02:01He didn't shoot that in St. Louis. He did Apocalypto. He didn't shoot that in Phoenix either.
02:07So I don't know exactly where this begins and ends, except it ends the film as we understand it now.
02:14It's not tenable. It's the stupidest idea I've ever heard. By the way, it's perfect sense that
02:21Trump would have come up with this idea. Who advised him to do this is, I don't know, they're morons.