Hollywood Braces for a ‘Masks Off’ Trump Era

Vulture

When Donald Trump emerged with raised fist from 2024’s never-ending cortisol blast of an election last year, liberal-leaning Hollywood responded to the news with questions.
“Hollywood doesn’t matter as much as it thinks it matters,” says a talent manager with A-list clients.
“In certain corners of the entertainment world, there’s suddenly this opportunity for conservative-minded viewers to see a bit of their world represented.
“I DO know Hollywood will indeed self censor,” an awards-campaign publicist with experience campaigning for left-leaning Oscars movies told me via email.
“may trump supporters and trump voters and trump himself never know peace.” (The posting concluded: “fuck donald trump.”) Backlash came immediately, with commenters announcing plans to boycott the $200 million fairy-tale remake.

NEGATIVE

Hollywood, which leans liberal, asked questions when Donald Trump emerged with his fist raised from last year’s endless cortisol blast of an election. “Cable cowboy” John Malone, the Liberty Media billionaire who once owned stakes in Starz Entertainment and the Weinstein Company, started pushing for a wave of new merger activity that would have been unthinkable under the Biden administration’s regulatory umbrella. This came after a wave of predictably distressed celebrity tweets, the first of which asked: What does this mean for our bottom line? The second asked: How do we make Trump 2.0 work in our favor? Warner Bros. David Zaslav, Discovery’s infamous CEO, celebrated the upcoming regime change and viewed Trump’s redux as a vital remedy for the Federal Trade Commission’s anti-acquisition stance, which would allow for media companies to engage in ever-increasing corporate gigantism. On an earnings call, Zaslav stated, “It might present a chance for consolidation that would have a significant and quicker impact on this industry.”.

Industry rumours turned inward within weeks. The notoriously vindictive president, who in 2018 pushed the postmaster general to double postal rates for Amazon shipments in retaliation against Jeff Bezos for critical coverage in the Washington Post, makes Hollywood’s power structures particularly susceptible to blowback. Disney Entertainment co-chair Dana Walden, who oversaw ABC news among other divisions and was a leading candidate to succeed soon-to-be-retiring Disney CEO Bob Iger, became a prime suspect because of her long-standing friendship with and tireless campaign fundraising efforts for Kamala Harris. This raised a third question: Who will Trump attack first? Trump complained about Walden giving Harris the questions ahead of the September 10 presidential debate on ABC, claiming without evidence that “her best friend is the head of the network!”. There has also been a good deal of MAGA backbiting during Iger’s leadership. Trump has criticized Disney on social media as a “woke and disgusting shadow of its former self,” even going so far as to attack the studio’s diverse casting choices for films like the 2023 live-action version of The Little Mermaid. Trump will undoubtedly target Iger, according to a consultant with inside knowledge of the executive C-suite. “Anything he can do to mistreat him and Disney in light of the events involving DeSantis and Florida.”. “”.

Now that the 45th president has been re-elected as President 47, the majority of movie industry insiders are crouched with Disney executives. The people of the Thirty-Mile Zone are aware that significant change is imminent, even though it is unclear exactly what form and extent it will take, after dealing with a pandemic and two Hollywood strikes. Studios executives, hitmaking producers, high-level talent managers, and on-set crew members (the majority of whom spoke on condition of anonymity) are among the sources I consulted, and they all predicted that Hollywood will generally become more self-censoring and less able to critique the current political moment, if not less influential overall.

A talent manager who works with A-list clients claims that Hollywood isn’t as important as it believes it is. “Kamala Harris received support from the world’s biggest celebrities.”. More influential advocates could not have been attracted by her. Additionally, it had no effect. It’s disturbing because the culture isn’t influenced by the people and things you value most. What does that tell you? Even though I adore movies, they aren’t the main attraction anymore. “.”.

Will any “culture of resistance” (like the 2017 protest against the so-called Muslim ban organized by United Talent Agency with a star-studded rally) continue? One corporate strategist with interests in both television and film called the atmosphere in town “preemptive exhaustion.”. Not only are financial concerns causing Hollywood to feel doomed, but there is also a widespread belief that the “woke is broke” mentality will influence what we see on television in the years to come. In this way, they view film as more of a bellwether than a trailblazer, reflecting society more than it does making predictions or being absolute.

The blockbuster producer claims that “the movement away from ‘woke’ was already in motion even before Trump got re-elected.” He cites a number of recent Marvel films, including Eternals and The Marvels, as well as two of the three films in the most recent Star Wars trilogy, The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, which all did poorly at the box office and were accompanied by a flurry of fanboy complaints about “forced diversity.”. Executives who were employed by the studios to promote DEI in movies and television have been leaving. A reckoning was inevitable because Hollywood had veered too far to the left in recent years. “”.

Not coincidentally, Trump’s reelection occurs at the end of a year in which the Daily Wire’s documentary, Am I Racist?, which decried diversity, equity, and inclusion, became the highest-grossing documentary of 2024. Not long after, Participant Media, a production company renowned for producing tough-minded, issue-driven documentaries such as An Inconvenient Truth and The Cove, abruptly closed. In 2024, Twisters also became a blockbuster hit, gaining popularity among viewers in the middle and southern regions of the United States thanks to its distinctive red-state aesthetic. S. However, expecting a completely right-wing reboot would be a mistake. Overt politics just don’t sell, according to a number of studio and production company executives. According to a production executive, “Rhetorical storytelling isn’t very popular in Hollywood.”. Conservative-minded viewers now have the chance to see some representation of their world in some areas of the entertainment industry. It’s unclear to me, though, whether it will necessarily be a flip to the opposite side of the equation. “”.

The Apprentice by Ali Abbasi may be a rather extreme example, as it dramatizes the future president’s early career and political awakening, but its reception offers a blueprint for the kind of self-policing that industry insiders anticipate more of during Trump 2. In scenes from the fact-based independent film, Sebastian Stan, who plays DJT, undergoes liposuction, suffers from erectile dysfunction, and is chastised for consuming “totally disgusting” cheeseballs. Most controversially, he is shown raping Ivana, his wife. After making its Cannes Film Festival debut in May, The Apprentice took a two-pronged MAGA hit: stung by a cease-and-desist letter from Trump’s attorneys threatening legal action if the filmmakers pursued a North American distribution deal, and disparaged in a scathing statement by Trump spokesman Steven Cheung. The film was rejected by nearly all major and art-house distributors out of fear of retaliation. “They told us that we have corporate boards to answer to, so we’re stuck,” says Amy Baer, an apprentice producer. “It was more about, Is it worth the potential hassle?” (The Apprentice, which was eventually released by small-potatoes indie start-up Briarcliff Entertainment, has only made $4 million in domestic revenue. ().

Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World, which was known as Captain America: New World Order prior to June 2023, provides a more urgent illustration of what’s to come in 2025. (The change was interpreted as an implicit reaction to the IRL “New World Order” conspiracy theory, which is gaining popularity among right-wing extremists on the internet and suggests that there is a covert global elite plotting to establish a one-world government that is totalitarian. Brave New World, which opens in theaters on February 14, had to undergo costly reshoots with significant scenes removed after reports of its early test screenings were negative. Harrison Ford’s portrayal of Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, a demagogic military leader who transforms into an irrational, orange-hued superhuman, caused unexpected political resonances for the studio in its first year of release, according to a technical crew member on the movie who was aware of both the screenings and the reshoot process (which also happened last year).

He’s a very strong general who turns into a furious Red Hulk and a fascist person. This source clarifies that it was interpreted as a reference to Trump. We’ve been bleeding for a while, Disney realized. Let’s make an effort to avoid alienating our core base any more than we have in the previous few years. “.”.

Given Disney’s decision earlier this month to remove a transgender plotline from its Pixar animated series Win or Lose, Trump’s reelection is likely to have a chilling effect on liberal opinions, even for films that aren’t centered around characters that resemble the president. “I am aware that Hollywood will self-censor,” an awards campaign publicist who has worked on campaigns for left-leaning Oscar films emailed me. Fewer important things. Much more of it. “”.

Hollywood celebrities appeared to have taken a personal lesson from Rachel Zegler, who starred in Disney’s upcoming live-action Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, regarding the airing of Trump’s complaints. A few days following the election in November, the 23-year-old singer-actress publicly expressed her distress on Instagram. In the midst of this, I am at a loss for words. On her stories, Zegler wrote, “an additional four years of hatred, leaning us toward a world I do not want to live in.”. It is possible that Trump’s supporters, voters, and himself will never experience peace. The final words of the post were, “Fuck Donald Trump.”. Immediately after, there was a backlash, with commenters declaring their intention to boycott the $200 million fairy tale remake. One said, “After the statement you released, I’m not taking my kids to see this trash.”. Another said, “When this movie blows up at the box office and on streaming, I hope you don’t get any peace.”. Megyn Kelly, a former commentator on Fox News and NBC, said of Zegler on the Ruthless podcast: “There’s something wrong with this person.”. Hi Disney, you will have to redo your movie because this woman is a jerk and you fired Gina Carano for much less than this bullshit. “”.

“I let my emotions get the best of me,” Zegler wrote on Instagram as an apology. The conclusion is that “it makes famous people reluctant to stand up unless they want to face the consequences,” according to an executive at an independent production company. “Explaining which side of the aisle you sit on and disparaging a broad group of people you might be depending on to see your film are two very different things. “.”.

It’s too soon to tell if the industry is about to undergo a dramatic unmasking in which actors who previously exhibited left-leaning tendencies reveal their support for Trump. Days before the 2024 election, Nicole Scherzinger said she was sorry after making a seemingly supportive remark on Russell Brand’s Instagram post, which featured a red hat with the words “Make Jesus First Again.”. “I sincerely regret any hurt my recent engagement has caused,” the Sunset Blvd. lead stated in a press release. “I apologize to anyone who understandably came to the conclusion that these posts were politically related; I made the error of not realizing that when I commented on them. Before the election, Trump appeared in public with well-known actors like Mel Gibson and Mark Wahlberg. After a nine-year break, Gibson will return to filmmaking with Flight Risk in 2025, in which the latter will star. Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, and Jon Voight will be appointed as “Special Ambassadors” to Hollywood to act as the president’s “eyes and ears” in the entertainment industry, Trump declared in a Truth Social post on January 16.

According to a source close to Hollywood superagent Ari Emanuel, the CEO of Endeavor has been privately worried about his own friend-of-Kamala status over the past few weeks. This is because he has hosted several Democratic fundraisers this election cycle and contributed $1 million to Harris’s campaign and political action committee. According to this source, the president views Emanuel’s campaign contributions as an even greater act of disloyalty because he was once Trump’s agent. (To make matters worse, Emanuel and Trump’s trusted kitchen cabinet member Elon Musk are rumored to have recently argued over one of the agent’s most cherished causes, U.S. A. backing for Israel. ().

Many industry machers are still more focused on surviving another fiscal quarter than they are on prospering under Trump 2, as the film industry’s output is estimated to have decreased by up to 40% in the wake of the strike and the pandemic, and there is widespread concern about declining revenues and audience interest. A marketing executive claims, “We’re not thinking about how we resupply the troops; we’re just doing triage on the patients that are coming off the battlefield.”. “”.

There will almost certainly be fewer imaginative big swings onscreen as a result of that survivalist mindset. In the 26 years that I have been doing this, there has never been as much fear in the executive suites, according to a seasoned producer and talent manager. We are currently experiencing a severe shortage, according to what I observe both internally and with my friends throughout the industry, whether they work for studios, producers, creatives, or their agents. There is very little volume. From the buyers down, everyone is scared to take risks and make decisions that could endanger them. “”.

scroll to top