Sylvester Stallone, Jon Voight and Mel Gibson are tapped to save Hollywood as new Trump ambassadors

Ximena Conde, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Jan 16, 2025

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Sylvester Stallone, best known for his Philly-based "Rocky" franchise, is slated to save Hollywood from “foreign countries” taking away movie business and usher in a new “Golden Age of Hollywood.” Jon Voight and Mel Gibson are expected to take part in this endeavor, too.

No, this is not the plot of a new "Expendables" flick. It’s the latest job announcement made by incoming President Donald Trump.

In a post Thursday on Truth Social, Trump said Stallone, Voight, and Gibson were going to be special ambassadors to Tinseltown tasked with bringing business lost over the last four years “BACK, BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!”

Just how much business foreign countries are “taking away” from the United States was unclear, as was how the Hollywood envoys would go about taking such business back — the appointment announcement offered few details.

Still, it’s no secret the United Kingdom and other European countries like Greece, Bulgaria, and Estonia are vying to become filming destinations for American productions. These countries offer production tax incentives and rebates as high as 40% with the hope tourists will visit and snap a selfie where the last James Bond action sequence was filmed. The efforts have been working to a certain extent, with the U.K. catching up to Los Angeles in studio space, according to a 2022 Deadline report.

But that is far from Hollywood’s only problem.

Lesser-known actors, writers, and crews working behind the scenes have had an especially difficult couple of years, between pandemic shutdowns and high-profile strikes that froze productions. The actors’ strike lasted 118 days and the writers’ strike lasted 148 days. The wildfires devastating parts of California are the latest blow to the industry. According to the Hollywood Reporter, several productions shooting in the area temporarily paused filming due to the fires and evacuation orders. Just how many people in the industry were affected is not yet known.

In his announcement, Trump did not make mention of these other issues affecting the industry.

All three of the president’s appointees have been longtime supporters of his and no strangers to controversy.

Stallone, who called Trump a “second George Washington” at a Mar-a-Lago event in November, was accused of creating a “toxic environment” on the set of the series "Tulsa King." Voight made headlines last year when he accused his daughter Angelina Jolie of being “influenced by antisemitic people” over her calls for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. Gibson gave an infamous antisemitic rant during a DUI stop in 2006, followed by a 2010 incident where he made racist remarks to his girlfriend at the time. He has also been accused of making homophobic remarks.

“These three talented people will be my eyes and ears, and I will get done what they suggest,” said Trump in his post. “It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood!”

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