Search results for: “film”

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/trump-tariff-foreign-film-national-security-1236386566

Jon Voight has presented his Hollywood rescue plan…

While President Trump dropped his 100% foreign film tariff bombshell over the weekend, Oscar-winner Jon Voight was already at Mar-a-Lago pitching his industry revival plan. The presidential “Hollywood ambassador” has been making the rounds with unions, studios, and officials to craft his proposal—and now we’ve got the details:

•For filmmakers, Voight proposes stackable federal tax credits (10-20%) on top of existing state incentives. His plan would expand Section 181 provisions, allowing producers to write off 100% of costs in the first year. Instead of blanket tariffs, he suggests targeted penalties of 120% on productions that could have filmed in America but chose foreign locations just for tax incentives.

•For infrastructure, the plan includes tax credits for building or renovating theaters, studios, and post-production facilities. It would create job training programs to ensure Americans have skills for high-paying industry positions, with special emphasis on developing production capabilities in heartland states.

•For streaming platforms, Voight wants to revive regulations that once prevented networks from owning the shows they aired. Streamers would need to pay producers premiums (25-40% of production costs) for exclusive licenses, return more ownership rights after license periods end, and share copyrights 50/50 with content creators.

•For international work, the plan proposes co-production treaties with countries like the UK to enable collaboration without triggering tariffs. It includes exemptions from penalties for legitimate international partnerships that truly require foreign locations.

In the Golden Age of Hollywood (1930-1959), a 10:1 shooting ratio was the norm—a 90-minute film meant about 15 hours of footage. Directors like Alfred Hitchcock famously kept it tight with a 3:1 ratio, giving studios little wiggle room in the edit.

Fast forward to today: the digital era has sent shooting ratios skyrocketing. Affordable cameras roll endlessly, capturing multiple takes, resets, and everything in between. Gone are the disciplined “Action to Cut” days of film.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_ratio

https://www.cartoonbrew.com/video-essay/video-essay-french-film-financing-cnc-237725.html

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/lucasfilm-shut-operations-singapore-studio-animation-visual-effects-disney-3700061

Lucasfilm is winding down operations in Singapore after nearly 20 years in the country, with parent company Disney citing economic factors affecting the industry.

According to an ILM employee in Singapore, there are 340 staff members in the company and work will continue until the end of the year.

Patrick McIntire
Motion Picture Producer at Universal Pictures & Part Time Instructor at UCLA

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/patrick-mcintire-0b442367_so-how-much-real-money-does-a-25-million-activity-6985358681626357760-MY1G/

“So how much real money does a $25 million film that grosses $100 million at the box office make? Not nearly as much as you think…

First off, the exhibitor (theatre chain) takes 50% on average of the box office receipts. So now your $100 million is down to $50 million. Then there’s the distribution fee, which domestically averages about 30% (in this case, about $15 million). This brings your $50 million down to about $35 million. But we’re not done yet…

P&A (marketing) averages roughly the same amount as the budget of the film worldwide, or about 60% of the budget domestically (US). This varies depending upon the performance of the project. But we’ll use the average (60% of $25 million (the budget) is $15 million). This is then taken from the $35 million, taking you down to $20 million roughly. A far cry from the advertised $100 million gross.

If the project was privately financed (equity investor or investors), they get first monies in and first monies out. At a $25 million investment, the remaining monies go directly to the investors. Leaving $0 initially for producers. Yes, ancillary rights will make up the losses (cable, streaming, airlines, etc.), but this is to show how a movie’s box office claims are not as they appear. Studio films with larger budgets see much higher costs and often don’t turn a profit at all. Profit sharing (backend) can be next to nothing if the film is a bomb. This is just an example and only takes into account domestic box office. But it’s meant to show how misleading a film’s advertising that claims $100 million at the box office can be. Gross receipts are exciting to share. Net receipts? Not so much.”

Comments:
“this equation needs add the variable that in the majority of studio film and tv projects, the taxpayers of the municipality where the production is based and posted pay up to 40% of the cost of the production in the form of a rebate and other financing incentives while the profits on the movie are taxed in another location usually chosen to minimize tax liability.“