twice<\/a> threatened to impose 100% tariffs on films made outside the US that come into the country; although detail on how such a plan would work in practice has not been forthcoming.<\/p>\nPaul is Voight\u2019s manager, production partner and special advisor to his Hollywood ambassadorial role, to which Voight was\u00a0appointed by Trump. Speaking in Doha, Paul laid out his view of how the tariffs controversy arose.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went around all of Hollywood: the idea was, there weren\u2019t enough films being made in the US,\u201d said Paul. \u201cProductions have been going everywhere in the world, England, Australia, Bulgaria. There\u2019s a series of reasons for that; one is it\u2019s very expensive to film in the United States. The other thing is there are great tax incentives when you go overseas.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t really been having that in the United States. We\u2019ve been looking at how to make the American industry healthy again \u2013 or great again. We\u2019ve come up with a plan, which we then submitted to the president. We met with every streamer, the studios, every union. We put together a coalition.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve come up with a laundry list, a wish-list: there was tax credits in America; there was co-production ideas; there is write-offs for individuals, infrastructure ideas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe gave the whole list to the president. We\u2019re sitting there in Mar-a-Lago. And one of the things that he liked, 20 pages in, was the word tariffs. That got a lot of news. It\u2019s been crazy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will see,\u201d continued Paul. \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to tariff the entertainment business and I don\u2019t think it would be good if there were tariffs on the entertainment business. Hopefully we won\u2019t be going down that path, but we will introduce co-productions and tax credits and all of that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want us only building in the United States; I want there to be treaties so that we can do things \u2013 like I\u2019m saying between Doha and America \u2013 that\u2019s what I\u2019m hoping.\u201d<\/p>\n
Devilina<\/em><\/h3>\nPaul\u2019s SP Media Group acquired California-based production facility Avenue Six Studios earlier this year, as part of its efforts to improve US production.\u00a0Sean McNamara\u2019s The Last Firefighter<\/em> starring Voight and Kelsey Grammer recently wrapped at the Studios, produced by Paul.<\/p>\nAs previously announced, SP Media Group acquired the Atlas Comics library in 2019 and Paul is leading a relaunch of the brand, with projects including a live-action version of Devilina<\/em>\u00a0written by Rebecca Webb.\u00a0First published in 1975, the\u00a0Devilina<\/em> comic follows a young woman who travels to New York to explore her past, only to discover she is the sister of Satan and her twin brother has been manipulating her.<\/p>\nSpeaking in Doha, Paul described the upcoming Devilina<\/em> film as \u201ca coming-of-age story \u2013 very unique, very interesting, very difficult\u201d.<\/p>\nIn the Q&A portion of the session, Paul was asked by an industry attendee about the \u201celephant in the room\u201d, of what the questioner described as Voight\u2019s islamophobia, and how Paul might get that message to Trump.<\/p>\n
Paul said he was \u201csadly not going to get into politics\u201d but that \u201cJon Voight loves the entertainment business, Donald Trump loves the entertainment business, and we are dedicated and thinking about ways to help the business\u201d.<\/p>\n
The producer then used a favourite Trump tactic by taking an unspecific dig at \u201dthe media\u201d. He said:\u00a0\u201c[The media] are dividing the United States, dividing the world, and demonising this one, demonising that one. We\u2019re all human beings, we should all be working together. I\u2019m a man of love and destiny, I want to see great things for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doha Film Festival runs until November 28.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n