Old World, New Power: The Unexpected Ways Europe’s Entertainment Business Could Benefit From Trump’s Re-Election

Judging by the shocked faces on the European buyers and sellers attending the recent American Film Market in Las Vegas, the U.S. election didn’t end the way they had hoped. On the morning after, the most common reaction heard around the Palms Casino, where the conference took place, was “WTF” (or a variation of) along with an eagerness to board a return flight home.

Whatever the opinions of Donald Trump across the Atlantic, the new political order could prove a
boon to Europe’s creative industries, which have flourished thanks to government-backed incentives and an exodus of U.S. talent to the Continent.

If anything, the election outcome crystallizes a shift in the way America is perceived abroad, one that has made Europe a land of opportunity for talent.

“For the longest time, the U.S. has been looked up to as a kind of ideal, a model of how society can be — open, free, inclusive, a place where artists and the arts can flourish,” says a U.S. film executive. “More recently, and with this major turn of events, America now joins the ranks of countries that feel less accessible and more closed off.”

Skyrocketing production costs and a dearth of incentives (plus pandemic reverberations and double Hollywood strikes) have seen U.S. productions relocate en masse to Europe — where countries have been aggressively bolstering their tax credits — or look to the Continent for financing.

Raffaella Leone, whose Leone Film Group is fully backing James Gray’s next movie, “Paper Tiger,” starring Adam Driver, Jeremy Strong and Anne Hathaway, says, “Only a few years ago it would have been unthinkable for us to be able to produce an American movie. Today, it can be done.”

She claims that American directors are not just turning to the European market for tax rebates but because it offers more “creative freedom.” For instance, filmmakers are able to work with writers who don’t belong to the major guilds.

Trump’s protectionist policies may make Europe a more attractive destination in other ways. If the new president institutes tariffs, the dollar could continue to strengthen against the pound and the euro, causing U.S. production costs to rise.

“That suddenly makes the U.K. and European creative industries look cheaper,” says Henry Birkbeck, film finance expert at law film Reed Smith, which has worked on the financing of shows such as “Peaky Blinders” and “Gangs of London.”

“It has become too expensive for most American independent directors to shoot in the U.S., which means something politically, since they can no longer take a critical look at their country and relay
it,” says Charles Gillibert, who is producing Kristen Stewart’s feature directorial debut, “The Chronology of Water,” which shot in Latvia and Malta; and Jim Jarmusch’s “Father, Mother, Sister, Brother,” which mainly filmed in Ireland and Paris.

Elsa Huisman, founder of French management company Studio 112, whose clients include Justine Triet, Ladj Ly and Rebecca Zlotowski, says, “From the point of view of filmmakers and even independent producers, there will certainly be, at least in auteur cinema, a great deal of concern about being financed or produced from the United States in this government.” Across the Atlantic, “Europe remains a bulwark of cultural diversity, of freedom of tone and subject, and an openness that can allow anything,” she says.

One British film exec believes MAGA’s return to power will inspire “left-leaning” producers and showrunners working in the U.K. to extend their stays into something more permanent.

Conversely, many European producers who shoot movies in the U.S. have struggled with the
rules governing the unions representing various crew members. David Atlan-Jackson, chief content officer for Vuelta Group (whose portfolio includes production outfits Telepool in Germany
and Playtime in France) remembers an incident during the production of “Still Alice” in New York.
Its star, Julianne Moore, asked a crew member if she could watch a scene she had just shot and was turned down. “We had to hire someone else to press rewind, as he was only there to press record, not rewind,” Atlan-Jackson recalls.

In the U.S., Georgia has the most generous tax rebate program, but European producers have
soured on the state because of its conservative leadership and abortion restrictions. “Talent
dread it,” Atlan-Jackson says.

Hollywood is no longer the only game in town. Movies and shows were the U.S.’s dominant cultural export, but other countries have created hits that rival anything a major studio makes.

Increasingly, streaming services have invested in non-U.S. content with enormous success, with
non-English language shows like “Lupin” and “Squid Game” attracting vast audiences, despite
their subtitles.

Moreover, Hollywood’s supremacy over the international box office is waning. While the U.S.
has reduced its output since the pandemic and the two strikes, domestic industries around the
world have filled the gap with original movies. France, for instance, has shown its capacity to deliver international blockbusters such as “The Count of Monte Cristo,” which was produced by Pathé with a budget under $50 million and beat Hollywood tentpoles like “Inside Out 2” at local cinemas. Even before opening in the U.S. and other major markets, “The Count of Monte Cristo” has already grossed more than $100 million.

Ardavan Safaee, CEO of Pathé Films, says a whole range of mid-budget movies that were once made in Hollywood in the 1990’s and “financed in part by Europeans on the pre-sale model” have disappeared. “In this new world,” he says, “European studios have a window of opportunity to rediscover these models” and help these movies getting made in the independent circuit.

Yet, Hollywood still retains an advantage over Europe when it comes to scouting emerging artists.

“Whether it’s U.S. agents or producers, they travel to all the major festivals and they spot European writing, directing and casting talent around the world pretty quickly. They do it better than us,” says Safaee. “It’s up to us now to create these relationships rather than letting them come and steal European talent.”

Nick Vivarelli contributed to this report.