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Roula Khalaf, editor -in -chief of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Slacks Foreign films pricesThe latest whistling breathing by US President Donald Trump is a plot riddled with holes. Films, like cars, are often multinational business. Random example: The apprenticeA biopic reflecting the rise of a younger Trump, covered funding from four countries. The director is Iranian-Danish; Two of the tracks are from Eastern Europe.
This helps to start with a stage set. The White House has usually presented prices as a means of reducing the American trade deficit. However, with regard to films, the United States enjoyed a surplus: it totaled $ 15.3 billion in 2023, According to the cinematographic associationAn industry organization. The exports were triple the value of imports.
Aside from the logical inconsistencies, there is the practical nature of the execution of a sample on something that does not come out of a ship or which passes physically in the hands of customs inspectors. The price of streaming content is a dark art, and producers are reluctant to set up subscriptions: Netflix has taken years to repress password sharing.
Investors have certainly not seen Netflix affect. US Streamer's actions initially dropped to the news on Monday, but have since recovered. In the United Kingdom, people in ADF facilities, who provide transport on the sets, have been down 16% since the start of the week.
Trump has the real bad guy has in sight to be the range of tax reductions and other incentives than foreign countries, including the United Kingdom, to attract Hollywood. The fact that the practice is so widespread testifies to the perceived value of developing a flourishing creative industry. Consider South Korea, which has built a heavy soft power at the rear of shows such as Calmar game and Oscar -winning Parasite.
The United States could follow the plunge or, alternately, continue various financing flows to give lightness to independent producers. An option under study in the United Kingdom, for example, is to exploit streamers, via a direct debit, to in fact transmit public television on high-end television. The risk, of course, is that some governments are inclined to make conditional financial support to include or avoid certain types of content.
But do not yet radiate British production and logistics. The reason why we, the filmmakers themselves, are happy with Schlep Crew and Kit around the world, is that the cheaper costs help their finances to pile up. Barbie was not alone in erecting her pink plastic house in Great Britain; Last year, the United Kingdom pulled Nearly 5 billion sterling books of Hollywood blockbusters have filmed in British studios.
In the absence, this plot will develop on strictly predictable lines. The continuation – or rather prequel – started last month when China retaliated to the first wave of prices increases by reducing its already thin quota of American films. America may see one of its rare surpluses missing – and making production more expensive will no longer make Hollywood Super.
