Donald Trump is planning to make Hollywood “stronger than ever” with a little help from Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson and Jon Voight.
The U.S. president-elect, who takes office Monday, announcedThursday that the three veteran actors have been named as “special ambassadors” to help bring business lost to “foreign countries” back to Hollywood.
“It is my honour to announce Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone, to be Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California,” Trump, 78, wrote on Truth Social.
“They will serve as Special Envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries, BACK—BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE! These three very talented people will be my eyes and ears, and I will get done what they suggest. It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood!”
While introducing Trump at the America First Policy Institute Gala in November, Stallone, 78, hailed the incoming president as “the second George Washington.
“We’re in the presence of a really mythical character,” Stallone said to a roomful of cheers in a video shared on X by C-SPAN. “I love mythology. And this individual does not exist on this planet. Nobody in the world could have pulled off what he pulled off, so I’m in awe.”
He also likened Trump to Jesus and his boxer character Rocky, telling the crowd his screen creation was “a chosen person … Something was going to happen. This man was going to go through a metamorphosis and change lives, just like president Trump.”
He celebrated Trump as a commander-in-chief akin to the first president, whose leadership altered the course of U.S. history.
“When George Washington defended his country, he had no idea that he was gonna change the world. Because without him, you could imagine what the world would look like. Guess what? We got the second George Washington.”
Stallone’s comments echoed praise from Voigt, who has been one of Trump’s most vocal supporters over the years, calling him “the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln.
“Donald is funny, playful and colourful, but most of all, he is honest,” Voigt told Breitbart News in March 2016. “He has no bull to sell and everyone will discover the bull most politicians spew out is for their own causes and benefits.”
In 2019, Voight shared a two-part message on X in which he said Trump had “made his every move correct” and that the U.S. is “stronger, safer and with more jobs” because of his leadership.
After hearing Thursday’s announcement, Voight told Fox News he had witnessed the “slow deterioration” of Hollywood in recent years.
“I’m old enough to have touched some years of the Golden Age of Hollywood and I’ve seen its slow deterioration since,” he said. “Today, we are in pretty bad shape. Very few films are made here now, but we are fortunate to have an incoming president who wants to restore Hollywood to its former glory and with his help I feel we can get it done.”
Gibson, 69, threw his support behind the former president in last year’s election by hitting out at his Democratic rival Kamala Harris.
“I don’t think it’s going to surprise anyone who I vote for,” Gibson said when TMZ caught up with him at Los Angeles International Airport in October.
“I’m gonna guess Trump. Is that a bad guess?” the cameraman replied, as he trailed the Oscar winner.
“I think that’s a pretty good guess,” Gibson said. “I know what it’ll be like if we let her in. And that ain’t good. Miserable track record. No policies to speak of. She’s got the IQ of a fence post.”
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In a statement provided to Fox News, CBS News and other media outlets, Gibson, who directs the upcoming Mark Wahlberg thriller Flight Risk, said he was “surprised” by Trump’s announcement that he was being tapped to be one of his special envoys.
“I got the tweet at the same time as all of you and was just as surprised. Nevertheless, I heed the call. My duty as a citizen is to give any help and insight I can. Any chance the position comes with an ambassador’s residence?” he quipped.
Although it’s unclear what Gibson, Voight and Stallone will be doing to bring business back to Hollywood, Trump’s new trio should cause some worry in Canada. The film and TV industry is big business across the country, particularly in Ontario where major Hollywood studios and streamers helped lift business in the province to the tune of $3.15 billion in 2022.
Amazon (The Boys, Reacher), Paramount (Star Trek: Discovery) and Netflix (The Umbrella Academy) utilize studios in Toronto and Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro shoots his feature films in the city.
Meanwhile, according to data from ProdPro published by the Los Angeles Times, production in the United States was down about 40% in the second quarter of 2024 compared to peak-TV levels of filming activity during the same period in 2022. Also citing data from ProdPro, the Associated Press reported that overall production in the U.S. was down 26% from 2021.