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    The rise and fall of Disney: how the company found then lost its backbone

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    The Walt Disney Company is probably hoping that upon viewing the new trailer for the upcoming Star Wars film The Mandalorian and Grogu, audiences feel a swell of nostalgia. No, not for 1977, when Star Wars was fresh and wondrous; after all, Disney didn’t even own it then. Not even for a decade ago, when the company brought the film series roaring back with 2015’s The Force Awakens, still the highest-grossing movie in US box office history. Rather, the trailer, consciously or not, hopes to transport viewers, and presumably profits, back to the halcyon days of … 2019.They would probably settle for any time before their brief but tumultuous suspension of Jimmy Kimmel from ABC became national news. But 2019 would be preferable. That year, Disney’s exercised almost unprecedented box office domination, boasting an astonishing seven of the year’s 10 biggest hits – and an eighth featuring Spider-Man, a Disney-owned character in a movie produced by Disney’s Marvel Studios (but released by Sony). Remakes of Aladdin and The Lion King, sequels to Toy Story and Frozen, two to three Marvel installments (depending on how to count Spider-Man), and a new Star Wars movie added up to around $10bn in global grosses. If the Star Wars movie The Rise of Skywalker landed a little soft compared to its better-reviewed predecessors, even that cloud had a silver lining: the late 2019 debut of The Mandalorian on the then new Disney+ streaming service was an instant sensation. Even genuinely rapacious corporate moves, like Disney’s purchase of 20th Century Fox, were greeted in some fan corners with unthinking delight, because it meant some errant licensed Marvel characters could be in the MCU.As the Covid-19 pandemic (as well as relatively bare franchise cupboards) made replicating those 2019 profits impossible over the next few years, the company at least attempted to burnish some goodwill from contemporary audiences in other ways. In particular, Disney’s various entertainment brands/fiefdoms – Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, etc – seemed to keep the company’s most evil (or equivocating) corporate instincts at bay. In 2022, Pixar and Marvel employees helped push back against the company’s initial silence on Florida’s “don’t say gay” bill prohibiting discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in elementary school classrooms, which the company eventually condemned. Those companies were also beginning, after a long delay, to diversify their slate of movies, shows and characters, with projects such as Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Turning Red and The Acolyte.But the mixed reception to some of these projects, as well as a general mortal terror that they couldn’t somehow make a Frozen, Toy Story, Star Wars and Avengers movie happen every year in perpetuity, seemed to spook Disney somewhere in the transition period from supposedly brilliant CEO Bob Iger to stumblebum replacement Bob Chapek back to Iger again. Despite his savior status, Iger himself exposed that fear when he spoke with corporate-coded cowardice about future projects not putting forward “any kind of agenda”, a pledge in deference to meaninglessness that made even the more craven “exclusively gay moments” or long-delayed female-led Marvel movie seem fiery by comparison. Corporate skittishness over including gay or minority characters that might offend vague “international audiences” was now policy.View image in fullscreenIn some ways, the company was probably just catching some blowback from the much-delayed revelation that CEOs are largely useless figureheads. Yet a series of clumsy, cowardly decisions seemed to transcend boardroom drama. Disney has been carrying out Iger’s edict in a sloppy panic. Seemingly rattled by the ire of random YouTubers, the vagaries of a post-pandemic world and the re-ascension of Donald Trumpo, this year alone the company’s removed all references to a transgender character’s identity on a Pixar streaming show; completed the bowdlerization of the Latino-driven Pixar movie Elio, which originally featured a queer-coded character; reoriented (and renamed) their corporate DEI initiatives to emphasize the generation of that old fan favorite, profit; dumped Black-led Marvel show Ironheart out in a single binge despite using a weekly release model for its marquee shows; and yanked Jimmy Kimmel off the air for expressing skepticism over the Maga-world reaction to the murder of Charlie Kirk, before eventually backtracking. (ABC affiliates under Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar ownership will continue to pre-empt the show until further notice.) In an elegant cherry of bad PR, Disney apparently decided the time was also right for a streaming-service price increase, its third in three years.Of course, as with any massive corporation, Disney’s earlier diversity focus was probably more for the sake of public image and accompanying business interest than genuine empathy. It’s worth asking, then, whether any of these decisions did, in fact, make money for the company especially compared to the profits generated by the Black Panther movies, or a more diverse Star Wars trilogy. The revised Elio could scarcely have made much less at the box office; it’s the lowest-grossing Pixar movie other than those directly affected by the pandemic. Are any Disney+ subscriptions attributable to de-transing a supporting character on an eight-episode miniseries? On the other hand, plenty of people did seem to cancel their subscriptions over the Kimmel battle, and the company’s stock price dipped over the past week. If the idea for any of this was winning back Maga folks in the long run, well, good luck with that. They’re still fuming over the same-sex kiss in Lightyear or girls being in Star Wars or Black people being in anything. The plain truth is, there’s a certain Maga demographic that accepts nothing less than full capitulation to their preferences and values – and you can’t dabble in full capitulation.That’s why Disney’s real wish must be for a 2019 revival. Back then, there might have been little teapot-level tempests here and there from audience segments who complain that a remake is too woke or, on the less rabid side, who regard the inclusion of, say, queer supporting characters as mild (and cynical) concessions, but $10bn buys executives a lot of confidence (even if it’s apparently not enough for actual courage). After all, that’s an environment where no one’s favorite Star Wars film can still eke out a billion dollars worldwide.Disney isn’t alone in facing a tough entertainment landscape where movies don’t gross quite as much and streaming services can easily tip into overspending. But it’s the company that now seems most terrified of this new world, maybe because its late-2010s surge somehow created the impression that endless and unbeatable growth on the backs of perma-beloved nostalgia brands would be possible. It’s not, and if there’s an upside to Disney’s morally checkered year, it’s the revelation that brands are not bulletproof spine protection. No one mad about Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension (or mad about his words to begin with) seems to be taking solace in the upcoming release of another Zootopia movie. The Mandalorian movie looks fun, fan-friendly, perfectly watchable … and that’s not enough to save anyone. More

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      The more James Gunn’s Superman is a hit, the more the right will want its own Dean Cain of steel

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      It’s almost impossible to divide superheroes along political lines. Captain America might seem like a patriotic, commie-bashing lunatic, as he was in the 1950s comics during the McCarthy era, until you remember that he has also spent much of his fictional career telling corrupt government agencies to shove it. And, in the Marvel Comic Universe, at least, he went on the run rather than sign up for an authoritarian superhero registry. Superman was once the square-jawed poster boy for US exceptionalism, cheerfully posing on propaganda comic covers urging readers to buy war bonds, but he’s also been written as a Kansas farm boy so suspicious of concentrated power that in one storyline he renounced his citizenship to avoid being used as a pawn of US foreign policy.Bar a few outliers – Iron Man cheerleading the military-industrial complex in his earliest comics springs to mind – trying to pin a superhero to one side of the political spectrum is like trying to staple fog: most of DC and Marvel’s big beasts will drift wherever the story, or the writer’s mortgage payments, takes them. Which is why it’s been so bizarre watching the right’s disgust as a vaguely woke man of steel drives all before him at the summer box office.James Gunn’s Superman passed the half-billion-dollar mark globally this week, which hardly means we’re looking at a film to mirror the success of the early comic book movie era – Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice somehow made $874m, for chrissakes – but does at least indicate that audiences quite like this new, down-to-earth, kindly and human take on Kal-El. Gunn is now producing next Wonder Woman.View image in fullscreenMeanwhile, on the dystopian side of the news cycle, Dean Cain has declared himself primed and ready to join Donald Trump’s Ice agency. Cain (Kal-El in 90s TV series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman) only recently declared his horror at how “woke” the new David Corenswet Supes has turned out to be. Are these two things connected? Is Cain trying to make the point that a real “superman” would be standing at America’s borders, demanding paperwork from asylum seekers and Frisbeeing their lunch into the nearest bin, rather than attempting to stop evil invaders from terrorising a rival nation (as Corenswet does in Superman)?It’s almost as if, in the absence of the kind of superhero movies Cain would like to see muscle their way into multiplexes, the actor sees it as his patriotic duty to bring hard-border fiction into reality. If the 74 million who voted for Trump don’t want these woke Marvel and DC superhero movies, and would really rather see films in which caped crusaders defend gated communities against suspiciously accented delivery drivers, isn’t Hollywood missing a trick? Isn’t there – somewhere – a gap in the market, or perhaps an alternative reality – Earth 45? Earth-Fox News? – where filmgoers queue around the block to watch Captain Constitution and the Stand Your Ground Squad, and the Hollywood trades wax lyrical about a new blockbuster era of paranoia and punitive zoning laws?The right has tried this already, of course. Cain was also pretty upset about Disney’s recent “woke” Snow White remake, perhaps because the princess didn’t spend the runtime pining for a man or whistling while she ironed. And so was conservative media outfit the Daily Wire, which at the height of the backlash against Rachel Zegler’s casting made a trailer for a then-forthcoming rival film titled Snow White and the Evil Queen.Plot details were thin on the ground, but presumably involved the heroine abandoning woodland animals for a concealed-carry permit and learning the value of hard work by running her own small business into the ground without government subsidies. We’ll never really know because the film appears to have been quietly cancelled, leaving a potential audience of millions bereft of the chance to see what happens when you trade magic mirrors for voter ID checkpoints.View image in fullscreenPerhaps the lesson here is that it’s just really difficult to make dreamy-eyed fantasy flicks that double as Breitbart comment threads. And it’s not just superhero movies that would creak under the strain. Imagine Star Wars if rebellions were built not on hope but on stricter border controls and mandatory midichlorian checks. Would The Lord of the Rings have really been quite the same if all those ’orrible orcs and trolls had been replaced on the battlefield by desperate migrants trying to reach the Shire, being enthusiastically biffed by an over-xcited Aragorn and Gimli counting down the number of “illegals” they just tonked?Sooner or later, someone’s going to make a superhero film or TV series that gives the Maga crowd everything: a caped crusader who fights windfarms, sues the Daily Planet for libel and pays for everything in gold bullion or crypto. (The Boys got close at times: Homelander is basically what happens when you cross Captain America with a Trump rally and a gallon of unpasteurised milk, but he was hardly a hero – and perhaps that’s the point.)Until then, the culture warriors will have to settle for grumbling about woke elves and lady Thor while the rest of us watch Superman save the world from the nastiest supervillains in the universe without checking anyone’s passport. More

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      Trump, Sydney Sweeney and the ‘war on woke’ – podcast

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      Archive: Fox News, ITV News, Megyn Kelly, Ben Shapiro, Sky News Australia, the Independent, TikTok @midwesterngothic, WHAS11, NBC News
      Watch The Oath here
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      Send your questions and feedback to politicsweeklyamerica@theguardian.com
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      Spike Lee, Adam McKay and over 2,000 writers decry Trump’s ‘un-American’ actions in open letter

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      More than 2,300 members of the Writers Guild of America, including Spike Lee and Adam McKay, have signed an open letter decrying the actions of Donald Trump’s administration that represent “an unprecedented, authoritarian assault” on free speech.The letter, a combined effort from the WGA East and West branches, cites the US president’s “baseless lawsuits” against news organizations that have “published stories he does not like and leveraged them into payoffs”. It specifically references Paramount’s decision to pay Trump $16m to settle a “meritless lawsuit” about a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. The letter notes that Trump “retaliated against publications reporting factually on the White House and threatened broadcasters’ licenses”, and has repeatedly called for the cancellation of programs that criticize him.Additionally, the letter blasts Republicans in Congress who “collaborated” with the Trump administration to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting “in order to silence PBS and NPR”. And it says the FCC, led by Trump-appointed chair Brendan Carr, “openly conditioned its approval of the Skydance-Paramount merger on assurances that CBS would make ‘significant changes’ to the purported ideological viewpoint of its journalism and entertainment programming.“These are un-American attempts to restrict the kinds of stories and jokes that may be told, to silence criticism and dissent,” the letter reads. “We don’t have a king, we have a president. And the president doesn’t get to pick what’s on television, in movie theaters, on stage, on our bookshelves, or in the news.”Signees include Tony Gilroy, David Simon, Mike Schur, Ilana Glazer, Lilly Wachowski, Celine Song, Justin Kuritzkes, Desus Nice, Gillian Flynn, John Waters, Liz Meriwether, Kenneth Lonergan, Alfonso Cuarón, Shawn Ryan and many other prominent names in film and television.The letter, released on Tuesday, calls on elected representatives and industry leaders to “resist this overreach”, as well as their audiences to “fight for a free and democratic future” and “raise their voice”.The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced last Friday that it would shut down after 57 years in operation, following the decision by the Republican-controlled House last month to eliminate $1.1bn in CPB funding over two years, part of a $9bn reduction to public media and foreign aid programs.The corporation, established by Congress in 1967 to ensure educational and cultural programming remained accessible to all Americans, distributed more than $500m annually to PBS, NPR and 1,500 local stations nationwide. Despite the federal grants, stations mostly relied on viewer donations, corporate sponsorships and local government funds to stay afloat.The Trump administration has also filed a lawsuit against three CPB board members who refused to leave their positions after Trump attempted to remove them.“This is certainly not the first time that free speech has come under assault in this country, but free speech remains our right because generation after generation of Americans have dedicated themselves to its protection,” the letter concludes. “Now and always, when writers come under attack, our collective power as a union allows us to fight back. This period in American life will not last forever, and when it’s over the world will remember who had the courage to speak out.” More

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      California legislature acts to keep film and TV production at home

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      Hollywood’s home state of California will more than double annual tax incentives for film and television production to $750m under a measure passed by the Democratic-led legislature on Friday.The increase from the current $330m was approved as part of a broader tax bill that is expected to be signed into law by California’s governor, Gavin Newsom.Newsom has advocated for the boost, a step to help reverse a years-long exodus of production from California to places such as Britain, Canada and other US states that offer generous tax credits and rebates.Producers, directors, actors and crew members have warned lawmakers that Hollywood was at risk of becoming the next Detroit, the former automaking capital devastated by overseas competition.Permitting data showed production in Los Angeles, the location of major studios including Walt Disney and Netflix, fell to the second-lowest level on record in 2024. California has lost more than 17,000 jobs since 2022 from its declining share of the entertainment industry, according to union estimates.Producer Uri Singer said he shot three films in New York to take advantage of its tax incentives. He received a California tax credit to shoot his current project, a horror flick called Corporate Retreat, in Los Angeles.“You can get such good cast and crew that are available that makes shooting in LA financially better,” he said. “Besides that, creatively you find here anyone you want, and if you need another crane, within an hour you have a crane.“Plus, “the crew is happy because they go home every day,” Singer added.“The Entertainment Union Coalition applauds today’s announcement,” said Rebecca Rhine, the president of a coalition of unions and guilds that represent writers, musicians, directors and other film professionals, in a statement. “The expanded funding of our program is an important reminder of the strength and resiliency of our members, the power of our broad-based union and guild coalition, and the role our industry plays in supporting our state’s economy.”“It’s now time to get people back to work and bring production home to California,” Rhine added. “We call on the studios to recommit to the communities and workers across the state that built this industry and built their companies.”Local advocates applauded California’s expansion of tax incentives, though they said more needs to be done.Writer Alexandra Pechman, an organizer of a Stay in LA campaign by Hollywood workers, called on traditional studios and expanding internet platforms to commit to a specific amount of spending in California to support creative workers.“It’s time for the studios and streamers to do their part to turn this win into real change for all of us,” Pechman said.Industry supporters also are pushing for federal tax incentives to keep filming in the United States.Donald Trump claimed in May that he had authorized government agencies to impose a 100% tariff on movies produced overseas. The movie tariff has not been implemented. More

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      ‘These guys are idiots’: Sean Penn and Dustin Lance Black call out government’s Harvey Milk erasure

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      Sean Penn, the Oscar-winning actor of the 2008 Harvey Milk biopic Milk and Milk writer Dustin Lance Black have spoken out against US defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to remove the gay rights icon’s name from a navy ship.“This is yet another move to distract and to fuel the culture wars that create division,” Black told the Hollywood Reporter in a phone call on Wednesday. “It’s meant to get us to react in ways that are self-centered so that we are further distanced from our brothers and sisters in equally important civil rights fights in this country. It’s divide and conquer.”Penn, who won his second best actor Oscar for playing the former San Francisco supervisor, added in an email: “I’ve never before seen a Secretary of Defense so aggressively demote himself to the rank of Chief PETTY Officer.”The order to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, christened in San Diego in 2021 for the prominent gay rights and navy veteran, was part of an internal memo that was leaked on Tuesday. The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson confirmed that the ship’s new name “will be announced after internal reviews are complete”.The timing of the decision for mid-June, a month meant to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community, was reportedly intentional. The renaming is supposed to ensure “alignment with president and SECDEF objectives and SECNAV priorities of reestablishing the warrior culture”, referring to Donald Trump, Hegseth and navy secretary John Phelan, according to the memorandum.“Secretary Hegseth is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all DOD installations and assets are reflective of the commander in chief’s priorities, our nation’s history and the warrior ethos,” the Pentagon said in a statement.“These guys are idiots,” Black told the Hollywood Reporter. “Pete Hegseth does not seem like a smart man, a wise man, a knowledgeable man. He seems small and petty. I would love to introduce him to some LGBTQ folks who are warriors who have had to be warriors our entire life just to live our lives openly as who we are.”Milk, written by Black and directed by Gus Van Sant, depicted Milk’s political ascendancy in San Francisco, where he became the first publicly gay man to be elected to public office when he won a seat on the city’s board of supervisors. He was assassinated along with mayor George Moscone by former city supervisor Dan White in 1978. White was convicted on two counts of voluntary manslaughter and served just five years in prison.The USNS Harvey Milk was initially named in 2016 during the administration of Barack Obama. According to the leaked memo, Phelan is also considering new titles for vessels named after such civil rights icons as Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Harriet Tubman and Cesar Chavez.“Harvey Milk is an icon, a civil rights icon, and for good reason,” Black said. “That’s not going to change. Renaming a ship isn’t going to change that. If people are pissed off, good, be pissed off – but take the appropriate action. Do what Harvey Milk had said we need to do, and it’s about bringing back together the coalition of the ‘us’-es that helps move the pendulum of progress forward. Stop the infighting and lock arms again. That’s what Harvey would say.” More

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      Michelle Obama 2.0 – the reinvention of the former first lady

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      Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. This week, I review Michelle Obama’s new podcast, IMO, which is surprising in the ways it breaks with the Michelle of the past.I came to sneer – and stayed to cheerView image in fullscreenFirst, a disclaimer: I had never fully bought into the Michelle Obama hype. I felt her now legendary line “When they go low, we go high” encapsulated a troubling and complacent form of respectability politics, in which Black people have to maintain coolness and grace under fire to be taken seriously. As the first lady, Michelle often seemed like a sanitising presence, wheeled out so that her national treasure status could serve as a smokescreen to obscure more honest and damning assessments of Barack Obama’s political record.Also, I am not a huge fan of the celebrity podcast genre, which is a vehicle for high-profile figures to chat to their friends in return for huge pay packets. So I was sceptical when Michelle’s podcast was launched in March. Yet when I listened to it, I was immediately charmed and hooked. In truth, I came to sneer and stayed to cheer. She is honest, reflective and vulnerable in ways that are profoundly resonant of a universal Black female experience, something that her icon status had rarely spoken to previously. The irony is that just as Michelle is finding her voice, her popularity appears to be falling – the podcast received poor ratings on launch, though it’s arguably the best thing she’s ever done.A great orator has the conversation of her lifeView image in fullscreenThe most arresting thing about IMO, despite the genuinely interesting high-profile Black guests such as Keke Palmer and the Wayans brothers, is Obama herself. She has always been one of the great orators in US politics – one of the superpowers that made her and Barack, another impressive public speaker, such a compelling couple on the world stage. In her podcast, Michelle uses this talent to reflect on her life and the challenges of ageing, losing her parents and the constant demands placed upon her.The fact that she co-hosts the show with her brother, Craig Robinson – a genial and down-to-earth foil for her confessions – gives the podcast such an intimate air that you feel like you’re in the presence of everyday people, not celebrities. I found myself listening not to hear any snippets of political gossip or insight into the Obamas’ lifestyle, but to receive some exceptionally articulated wisdom from an older Black woman who has seen a lot and gone through milestones we will all experience.She is also funny. Her account of how differently men and women socialise is familiar and hilarious. Michelle describes catching up with her female friends as a “multiday event”, something that leaves Barack perplexed as to why it takes two days for a basic meetup.There is pathos and uncertainty, too. In a recent episode, Michelle talks about the death of her mother, who lived in the White House during the Obamas’ tenure. Michelle says that, at 61, only now does she feel that she has finally become an adult, having had to reckon with her own mortality after the loss of her parents. The former first lady has revealed that she is in therapy, and that she is still trying to navigate this phase of her life.And, in a striking segment, she speaks with barely restrained annoyance about her reasons for not attending Trump’s inauguration, an absence that triggered divorce rumours that have been swirling for months. She says “it took everything in [her] power” to choose what was right for her in that moment. Yet that decision was met with “ridicule” because people couldn’t believe she was saying no to the inauguration for any other reason than she just did not want to be there – they had to “assume my marriage was falling apart”. Oof. It caught my breath.Beyond Black Girl Magicskip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenThis Michelle is worlds away from the Michelle of the 2010s. The publishing juggernaut and icon of Black social mobility, who rose to first lady from a bungalow in the south side of Chicago, was the product of a particular moment in feminist and racial discourse.The start of that decade brought the rise of Black Girl Magic, a cultural movement that focused on the exceptional achievements and power of Black women. It intersected with Black Joy, which moved away from defining the Black experience primarily through racism and struggle. Both unfolded against the backdrop of “lean in” feminism, which glorified hard graft, corporate success and having it all. The result was the marketing of women such as Michelle to promote popular narratives of inspiration and empowerment.That energy has since dissipated, losing steam culturally and overtaken by more urgent battles. The gains of the Black Lives Matter movement triggered a rightwing backlash against diversity and inclusion that is spearheaded by Trump. Now the Obamas seem like relics of a naively optimistic and complacent time.‘We got out of the White House alive – but what happened to me?’View image in fullscreenBut all that change and disappointment seems to have freed Michelle from the expectation that she should project graceful power and guru-like wisdom at all times. The podcast may not be the runaway hit it might have been 10 years ago, but that speaks to its authenticity and refreshing lack of a cynical big marketing campaign. Michelle is not trying to catch a moment – she even looks different. Gone is the silk-pressed hair, the minimalist jewellery and the pencil dresses. She now embraces boho braids, long colourful nails and bold gold jewellery. In an episode of IMO, she asks herself: “What happened that eight years that we were in the White House? We got out alive; I hope we made the country proud. But what happened to me?” There is so much urgency in her voice. And though her high-octane political experience may not be relatable to the average person, that question is one that I and many women of a certain age are asking as we emerge, blinking into the light, from the tunnel of navigating racism, establishing careers against the odds and having families. What happened to me?To receive the complete version of The Long Wave in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here. More

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      Trump’s Hollywood ambassador Jon Voigt joins coalition asking for tax incentives

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      Donald Trump’s Hollywood ambassadors, including actor Jon Voight, joined labor unions and major studios in asking the US president to expand and extend tax incentives for film and television productions.In a letter addressed to Trump on Sunday, the studios and unions did not mention his threat to introduce 100% tariffs on films made abroad, but instead thanked him for supporting the industry through their “shared goal” of domestic production.“We appreciate and thank you for the support you have shown our industry. We also appreciate your understanding of the need to increase domestic film and television production to bring back American jobs,” the letter read.The letter also calls for Trump to back three tax provisions in the upcoming budget reconciliation bill being drafted by Congress that it argues would “immediately make America more competitive, expand the American media industry, brings jobs back to America, and support the independent spirit of American business”.They include reviving section 199 of the tax code, which provided deductions for manufacturing to film and TV production, expanding section 181 to double to $30m in production expenditures, and restoring the section 461 ability to allow companies to carry back their net operating losses.The letter was signed by the Motion Picture Association, which represents Hollywood studios, and unions including Sag-Aftra, the Writers Guild of America, the Directors Guild of America, the Teamsters, as well as Voight and actor Sylvester Stallone, two of Trump’s so-called “special ambassadors” to Hollywood.There is no mention of Trump’s tariff proposal on foreign film production, which sparked outcry and confusion in the entertainment industry. The White House has since insisted: “No final decisions on foreign film tariffs have been made.”Trump announced his 100% tariff on foreign films a day after a meeting with Voight at Mar-a-Lago, during which the Midnight Cowboy and Heat actor presented his “comprehensive plan” to “make Hollywood great again”.Voight has since defended Trump’s proposal and expressed surprise at the negative reaction from across the industry, arguing: “Something has to be done, and it’s way past time.” More