“The news that President Donald Trump effectively greenlit Rush Hour 4 at Paramount has liberal Hollywood cycling through predictable stages of disbelief: awe, disgust, shame, rage and senselessness. All of which is understandable. After all, the deal — for a long-forsaken project, an action-comedy franchise starring two aging stars — underscores the servile fealty of”, — write: www.hollywoodreporter.com
After all, the deal — for a long-forsaken project, an action-comedy franchise starring two aging stars — underscores the servile fealty of new Paramount owners Larry and David Ellison amid their recent maneuvering to take control of TikTok and Warner Bros. Discovery (the latter seemingly futile). It also showcases Trump’s fondness for rehabilitating the careers of alleged sexual predators, in this case Rush Hour series director Brett Ratner, who’s recently been at work on his comeback project: an upcoming First Lady doc, Melaniawhich Trump antagonist-turned-ally Jeff Bezos bought for $40 million for Amazon Prime shortly after the president was reelected last year.
Still, maybe Hollywood should embrace acceptance. Or, better yet, pivot all the way to gushingly ushering Trump in.
That’s right. Hollywood should openly encourage the moguls accommodating him — from Tim Cook at Apple to the Murdochs, who even after the Fox sale still retain their Century City lot as well as streamer Tubi — to give the man a first look, even commend those loyalists for bestowing an overall deal. Better yet, tell them to throw in a bungalow office.
Do it for the business. Do it for the country.
Sure, it’s wrong for Hollywood to be doing deals with a sitting president, particularly this one. But it’s far less consequentially corrupt than what Trump’s reportedly already up to in the crypto realm and Middle East development. If audiences don’t like the output, they just won’t watch. For regime-aligned magnates, even flops can be worthwhile devotional exercises.
Trump, who considered attending USC’s film school and almost became a studio owner in Florida in the early 2010s, has long been open about his love affair with the entertainment business. “I was attracted to the glamor of the movies, and I admired guys like Sam Goldwyn, Darryl Zanuck and most of all Louis B. Mayer,” he shared in The Art of the Deal. A few years later, he continued to extol the moguls in a Playboy interview, adding, “the ultimate job for me would have been running MGM in the ’30s and ’40s — pre-television.”
His approach to the presidency is productive. A key hiring criterion for high-level, public-facing roles is whether someone looks the part. Or, in his words, is out of “central casting.” Then there’s his variety of the spectacle: the gilded Oval Office reno, the executive order signings as scripted tableaux, the big military parade timed to his birthday, the proposal for a so-called “Arc de Trump” neoclassical monument near Arlington National Cemetery.
So, let this industry be America’s pain sponge. Distract Trump in developing hell on a Rambo reboot with his designated Hollywood “ambassador” Sylvester Stallone. As a bonus, he’ll likely get religion on domestic production repatriation incentives reform. He famously loves Bloodsport? How about pursuing a remake instead of pursuing actual blood sport in Venezuela?
The president already has an eponymous production LLC, which was a vehicle for his work on reality projects before his political ascent. He can reactivate it. It’s easy to think of a cross-genre development slate — bolstered by his own lexicological IP. Imagine a MAGA-filtered version of the viral video format Ridiculousnesscalled Covfefe; a right-wing revisionist history anthology, Witch Hunt; a reactionary answer to The Daily Showworking title Fake News; or a hardboiled police procedural with a Blue Lives Matter framing under the banner of American Carnage.
What would seem to keep Trump most busy would be dreaming up a high-gloss, long-form retelling of his own life story and sprawling multi-generational family saga. It probably won’t end up in the league of Visconti’s The Leopardor even Netflix’s The Leopard. But who cares? The baseline third of the electorate which buys into any tale he tells will no doubt turn on, tune in and agitprop-out to this one, too.
From Home Alone 2 that The ApprenticeHollywood fueled the larger-than-life mythos and mystique that made America fall in love with Trump. It’s since spent the past decade attempting to atone by collectively distancing itself from him. That’s done no good. Perhaps it’s time to bear hug him.