(Headline USA) President-elect Donald Trump wants to make Hollywood “bigger, better and stronger” and has cast Mel Gibson, Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone as stars of what he is calling his “Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California.”
On Wednesday, the President-elect announced on his social media site that the three actors would be his eyes and ears to the moviemaking town.
“It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood!” he wrote on Truth Social.
He also called the trio special envoys. Special ambassadors and envoys are typically chosen to respond to troubled hot spots like the Middle East.
California, despite having one of the world’s largest economies, has become deeply troubled in recent times due to the mismanagement of its far-left government under Gov. Gavin Newsom.
In addition to the recent fires that have laid waste to parts of Los Angeles, open borders, drugs, violent crime and homelessness have driven many people out of its urban centers. High taxes and cost of living have, meanwhile, made the nicer parts of the state impossible for most to afford.
Gibson, who lost his home in the Palisades fire, wryly reacted to the news by asking, “Any chance the position comes with an Ambassador’s residence?”
The Braveheart Oscar-winner said he got the news “at the same time as all of you and was just as surprised. Nevertheless, I heed the call. My duty as a citizen is to give any help and insight I can.”
Representatives for Voight and Stallone did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Whether the three A-listers’ roles will be symbolic or will involve actual work as White House emissaries remains to be seen, but the silver screen’s increasing struggles to remain relevant have been hard to ignore in recent years.
U.S. film and television production has been hampered by setbacks from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hollywood guild strikes of 2023 and, in the past week, the ongoing fires. Overall production in the U.S. was down 26% from 2021, according to data from ProdPro.
In the greater Los Angeles area, productions were down 5.6% from 2023 according to FilmLA, the lowest since 2020. This past October, Newsom proposed expanding California’s Film & Television Tax Credit program to $750 million annually (up from $330 million). Other U.S. cities like Atlanta, New York, Chicago and San Francisco have used tax incentives to lure film and TV productions to their cities. Actor Mark Wahlberg is even making plans for a Las Vegas production hub.
And for conservatives who have opted to boycott Hollywood degeneracy, more wholesome and enriching options have emerged as part of the so-called parallel economy, including Utah’s ascendant Angel Studios.
All three of the actors named by Trump are among the rare film-industry conservatives who have openly expressed their support for the Republican president-elect.
Stallone is a frequent guest at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and introduced him at a gala in November shortly after the election.
“When George Washington defended his country, he had no idea that he was going to change the world. Because without him, you could imagine what the world would look like,” Stallone told the crowd. “Guess what? We got the second George Washington. Congratulations!”
Voight is a longtime Trump supporter who has called Trump the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln.
Gibson was considered one of the most marketable stars in Hollywood until a dramatic cancel-culture fall from grace in 2006, when he went on an anti-Semitic rant while being arrested for allegedly driving under the influence.
Nonetheless, he’s managed to rehabilitate his career somewhat in mainstream movies and as part of the parallel economy. He directed the upcoming Wahlberg thriller Flight Risk, and his sequel to the blockbuster 2004 hit The Passion of the Christ is due out later this year.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
