TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — President Trump is talking about applying tariffs to the movies—with a hundred percent tariff on films shot outside the U.S.
Tucson has an active film industry, so KGUN9 asked Tucson film professionals what they think of the plan.
When you go by Trail Dust Town you’re actually going past a part of Tucson film history. It was built as a set for use in making movies and TV shows. Tucson has been very active in the world of making movies and television shows and now President Trump is trying to juice up the film industry in the United States by imposing tariffs on films made in other countries.
Movie makers have been shooting productions in Arizona for more than 80 years. The weather’s good and the locations offer much more variety than just the dry desert look.
Recent figures show movies added between nine and 12 million dollars to the Tucson area economy last year.
Now President Trump says foreign incentives have pulled so many movie shoots to other countries that he wants to impose hundred percent tariffs on foreign films to bring more movie production back to the U.S.
At Film Tucson, Peter Catalanotte works to attract film business here. He says the President is right about foreign incentives sending movie business to other countries but he thinks it would work better to fight foreign incentives with U.S. incentives.
“Why not create a national film incentive? Other nations do this, and it's been very successful for them. It's the reason why a lot of film projects are leaving Hollywood and going to Europe or Australia. If we had a national film incentive program, it would draw everything back from those countries, and that would impact Tucson in a very positive way.” Arizona has state incentives to offer filmmakers but states like New Mexico and Georgia offer much richer incentives so they attract more movie business.
Matt Welch has been acting in movies here for more than 50 years. He says Arizona used to be number two in film production.
“And other states discovered that film production is pretty good. It's a clean industry. It employs 1000s of people, not just actors, but the production crew, the restaurants, the hotels and auto agencies and the set builders. It goes on and on.”
And Welch worries state lawmakers may kill the film incentives Arizona offers now.
