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Posted on 08/20/2025 7:54:19 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Voight's partners are hopeful a federal film incentive will be introduced in Congress this year.
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.”
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Love him.
The stupid in Hollywood has a lot of momentum.
Like a runaway train...?
Hah!
I don’t know the economics but am hopeful about the hunger for historical Biblical content, and less subcultural Christian media.
yes and Pureflix etc…
He bit it in the arm
Give him time. Maybe he’s got something.
And the woke there has tremendous resistance. To wit, Disney. Still.
Big fan of Jon Voight AND his daughter who is still making major movies but plans to spend less time in LA and more in Cambodia etc…
Gary Wheeler, an American filmmaker, producer and director, who resides in North Carolina.
We just watched "The List" by him.
And all that stupidity is coming from the lefties.
Are movies made in California really American?
I’m not so sure anymore.
Is this picture of Voight right after he bit Kramer? 😎 /s
I know Jon has good intentions but the only thing worse than Hollywood would be a government subsidized Hollywood.
“What Happened to Jon Voight’s Plan to Save Hollywood?”
Sometimes you gotta burn it down to fix it...
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