It’s long been a shining part of Calgary’s economy, but U.S. President Donald Trump has suddenly cast a dark cloud over the city’s film industry.
In a post Sunday night on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he has authorized the Department of Commerce and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to slap a 100 per cent tariff “on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.”
“It feels like a real gut punch,” said Deborah Yedlin, president & CEO of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.
“We’ve worked so hard.”
The city has made a cameo in several big-ticket films and T.V. shows over the years — standing in for the city of Metropolis in the 1983 film Superman III, and more recently, featuring in the HBO drama, The Last of Us.
The lights are bright — and it’s even bigger business.
“Think about how consumed we were by the filming of The Last of Us,” Yedlin recalled.
“That generated about $182 million to the Calgary economy.”
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The surrounding southern Alberta region has also played host to productions like the Fargo and Under The Banner of Heaven tv series, and movies like Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Brokeback Mountain and The Revenant, to name a few.
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Yedlin says every dollar spent on a film production in and around Calgary results in about $4 generated for the economy at large.
For the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 212, about 1,600 members typically spend this time of year gearing up for a busy summer of work.
“Right now we probably have about 65 per cent of our members working,” explained union representative Lee Proudlock. “That number will probably fluctuate a bit throughout the summer.
“We’re already estimating a slower year so this uncertainty could put a bit of a damper on that as well.”
Provinces and countries have long competed for big-ticket films by offering tax incentives — something Proudlock says Alberta could look at as a way to potentially offset the U.S.-inflicted pain.
“As a union, we have been — not alarm bells ringing — but starting to mention that maybe our tax incentive might need a slight boost up to compete with some Canadian and international markets.”
There’s still no word on how or when the tariffs would be implemented. Proudlock and Yedlin both believe that process could prove extremely complicated.
In the meantime, Calgarians are all hoping for a change of course in Washington.
“I’m hoping folks in the White House understand that film and television production are best done at a global scale,” said Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek.
“Give the fans what they want.”
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