President-elect Donald Trump is hoping to make Hollywood “stronger than ever before” by naming Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson and Jon Voight as “special ambassadors,” whose goal will be to bring back business lost to “foreign countries.”
“It is my honor to announce Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone, to be Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday. “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!”
Trump’s announcement comes four days before his inauguration in Washington, D.C., and as wildfires have destroyed thousands of homes and buildings in Southern Los Angeles. Many businesses are struggling to recover, and the cost is estimated to be around $250 billion. The domestic box office in 2024 was also down from the year prior, as the Hollywood release calendar took a hit from the 2023 actors and writers strikes. Last year’s revenues were $8.7 billion, down 3.3% from 2023 and 23.5% from 2019, the last pre-pandemic year, which reached $11.3 billion.
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Stallone, Gibson and Voight have been vocal Trump supporters in recent years. Stallone introduced the President-elect at a Mar-a-Lago gala in November, calling him the “second George Washington”; Gibson voiced his support for Trump and slammed Kamala Harris’ intelligence ahead of the 2024 election; and Voight spoke in depth about his admiration of Trump in a Variety cover story last year.
After being blacklisted from Hollywood for years after antisemitic comments, Gibson returned by directing the Oscar-winning film “Hacksaw Ridge” in 2016 and has an upcoming action movie, “Flight Risk,” starring Mark Wahlberg, out on Jan. 24. Stallone has recently starred in the Paramount+ drama “Tulsa King” and co-wrote and produced the upcoming Jason Statham action movie “Working Man.” Voight most recently appeared in Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” and the biopic “Reagan,” starring Dennis Quaid as President Ronald Reagan.
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