An Irish film director fears his income will be “completely decimated” by President Trump’s tariffs.
Yesterday, the US President announced that films made outside of America would be hit by a 100% tariff to prevent Hollywood dying "a very fast death".
"WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!" he wrote on social media.
On Lunchtime Live, film director Richard Waters described it as “absolutely shocking” to hear.
“Any sort of plans that have been in the pipeline felt like they completely died on the vine - it was absolute madness,” he said.
“People were saying it’s hard to implement anything like this because the film industry is a service industry as opposed to a physical good.
“But at the same time, it’s a very shaky industry; it’s notorious for being very reactive to being very cautious when things like this happen.
“In LA in particular, over the last few years, we’ve seen with the strikes and then the fires and all, production has struggled to come back.
“But even on my own side of things, I’ve been pitching films to people over in LA with American producers and the second this news came in, we just noted until there’s some sort of clear line on what’s happening, there’s no point in pushing anything else.
“No one knows what’s going on, no one’s going to put money into a project that might end up having to spend double the amount just to have it released.”
The Netflix app on a phone. Picture by: PA Archive/PA Images.Mr Waters added that his own work that had been recently released could be badly affected if the US market for foreign films dries up.
“Is a very small revenue line going to be completely decimated by the fact that there’s 100% tariffs on any returns? The returns can be pennies,” he said.
“The people who make these projects, you’re typically the person getting the smallest part of the pie in this.”
Research by Screen Ireland published earlier this year estimated the Irish film industry boosts the economy by €1 billion and supports 10,000 jobs.
Main image: A camera man and US President Donald Trump. Pictures by: Alamy.com/AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein.
