Hollywood's most unlikely savior is the man it spent years refusing to work with.
An industry built on storytelling now finds itself trapped inside one of history's stranger ironies: Donald Trump, long scorned by Hollywood's liberal establishment, has emerged as its unlikely protector, proposing sweeping tariffs on foreign films to reverse a collapse that California's own policies helped engineer. The exodus of productions to Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Eastern Europe is not a foreign invasion but a domestic wound — the consequence of punitive taxation, regulatory excess, and ideological gatekeeping. Whether protectionism can heal what self-inflicted damage has wrought is the question Hollywood has not yet learned to ask honestly.
- Dana Carvey and David Spade are saying out loud what the industry has long avoided admitting: Hollywood is not just struggling — it is hollowing out, production by production, year by year.
- California's tax structure and regulatory environment have pushed major films to Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Poland, and Malta, turning what was once a geographic monopoly into a cautionary tale about political overreach.
- Conservative filmmakers like Mel Gibson have been effectively exiled from the industry they helped build, forced to shoot abroad while the establishment that blacklisted them now seeks federal rescue.
- Trump's 100% tariff proposal creates a surreal alliance with Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass — the very figures blamed for the collapse — uniting ideological opposites under the banner of keeping American movies on American soil.
- The tariff risks becoming a wall that protects not the art form but the gatekeepers, shielding Hollywood's entrenched power structure from the competitive consequences of its own choices.
Dana Carvey, speaking with fellow SNL alumnus David Spade, offered a blunt verdict: Hollywood is collapsing, and it needs to learn to compete. Spade was less philosophical — he named names, pointing at Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom as architects of the industry's decline. The sarcasm was pointed, and the underlying argument was hard to dismiss.
The evidence is visible in the production schedules. Films that once would have shot on Southern California lots now film in Nashville, Pittsburgh, Guthrie, and Poland. A Milton Hershey biopic shot in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. The Reagan film starring Dennis Quaid was made largely in Oklahoma because California made it financially impossible to stay home. Conservative filmmakers like Mel Gibson, effectively blacklisted by an industry that built itself on creative freedom, have been forced to work in Italy and Malta.
Into this wreckage steps Donald Trump, proposing a 100 percent tariff on films produced outside the United States. His framing is patriotic — American movies should be made in America — and he has cast foreign production as a coordinated threat to American talent and capital. The irony is almost architectural in its perfection: Trump, long treated with contempt by Hollywood's establishment, is now its most prominent defender, effectively aligning himself with the Democratic politicians his supporters hold responsible for the collapse.
But the deeper problem is that Hollywood's wounds are self-inflicted, not foreign-made. A tariff might push productions back to Los Angeles in the short term without touching the tax burden, regulatory maze, or ideological conformity that drove them away in the first place. It could even entrench those conditions by removing the competitive pressure to change. Independent and conservative filmmakers who already fled may find themselves locked out of their own market, protected not by the tariff but by the gatekeepers it shields.
What the industry needs is not a wall around its dysfunction but relief from it — a reckoning with the choices that made California inhospitable to the very creativity it once claimed to champion. Whether Trump's intervention accelerates that reckoning or indefinitely postpones it is the question the industry has not yet found the courage to confront.
Dana Carvey, the veteran comedian who helped define Saturday Night Live in the 1980s, sat down recently with fellow SNL alumnus David Spade and delivered a blunt diagnosis: Hollywood is collapsing. Not metaphorically. The volume of actual film and television production happening in the industry's traditional home has cratered. Something has to change, Carvey insisted, and that something includes learning to compete with the rest of the world.
Spade wasn't interested in abstract solutions. He had specific targets for blame: Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom. The sarcasm in his voice was sharp. These two, he suggested, had helped kill the thing they were supposed to protect.
The diagnosis is not wrong. Hollywood's self-inflicted wounds are deep and visible. California's tax structure is punitive. The regulatory burden is crushing. The political atmosphere has become so ideologically rigid that filmmakers with certain viewpoints—or certain friends—find themselves unwelcome. The result is a mass exodus. Productions that once would have shot on studio lots in Southern California now film in Nashville, Pittsburgh, Guthrie, Oklahoma, and Poland. Last year, a biopic about Milton Hershey shot in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. The "Reagan" film starring Dennis Quaid, based on a Reagan biography, was made largely in Oklahoma because California's taxes and regulations made it impossible to shoot there. Conservative filmmakers like Mel Gibson have been effectively blacklisted, forced to make their films in Italy and Malta because the industry that built itself on creative freedom has decided certain creators are not welcome.
And yet something strange is happening. The person now rushing to Hollywood's defense—to the defense of the very Democratic politicians and industry gatekeepers who created this mess—is Donald Trump. The irony is almost too perfect to be real.
Trump's solution is a 100 percent tariff on movies produced outside the United States. His reasoning is wrapped in America-first patriotism: American movies should be made in America. He has framed foreign film production as a national security threat, a coordinated effort by other nations to poach American talent and capital. "We Want Movies Made in America Again," he declared, positioning himself as the defender of an industry that has spent years treating his supporters and allies with contempt.
This is where the story becomes genuinely strange. Trump, a businessman who typically champions competition and free markets, is proposing protectionism to save an industry that has been hostile to him and his allies. He is, in effect, teaming up with Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass—the very people Spade blamed for the collapse—to preserve Hollywood's monopoly on American film production. The unlikely bedfellows are united in wanting to keep movies made in America, even if their reasons for wanting that are completely different.
The deeper question is whether this alliance will actually save Hollywood or simply delay its reckoning. The industry's problems are not primarily about foreign competition. They are about California's own choices: its tax policy, its regulatory environment, its political culture. A tariff might force productions back to Los Angeles in the short term, but it won't fix the underlying conditions that drove them away. It might even entrench them. Meanwhile, independent filmmakers and conservative creators who have already fled to greener pastures will find themselves locked out of their own market. The tariff becomes a wall that protects not just Hollywood but the gatekeepers who control it.
What Hollywood actually needs is not protection from foreign competition. It needs to be unshackled from itself—from the tax burden, from the regulatory maze, from the ideological conformity that has made it inhospitable to anyone who doesn't fit the approved mold. Whether Trump's tariff accelerates that reckoning or delays it indefinitely remains to be seen.
Citas Notables
The Hollywood industry is dying. The amount of productions is dying. They have to do something so more production comes back.— Dana Carvey, SNL alumnus
We Want Movies Made in America Again.— Donald Trump
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
So Trump is actually trying to help Hollywood? That seems backwards.
It does seem backwards, but his reasoning is consistent with his broader worldview. He sees American production leaving America as a loss of American jobs and American capital. The tariff is meant to make it economically irrational to film anywhere else.
But doesn't that protect the very people who've been hostile to him?
Exactly. That's the strange part. He's defending an industry that has blacklisted his allies and mocked him relentlessly. But he's not defending it out of love for Hollywood. He's defending it because it's American.
Is the tariff actually going to work? Will it bring productions back?
Probably in the short term, yes. If foreign production becomes prohibitively expensive, studios will shoot in California again. But that doesn't solve the underlying problem—the taxes, the regulations, the political atmosphere that made them leave in the first place.
So it's a band-aid on a broken system.
More than that. It's a band-aid that might actually make the system worse by entrenching the gatekeepers who created the problem. Independent filmmakers who've already left won't come back. They'll just be locked out of their home market.
What would actually fix it?
California would have to change its own policies. Lower taxes, fewer regulations, a less ideologically rigid culture. But a tariff removes the pressure to do any of that. It lets Hollywood stay broken and just makes everyone else pay the price.