President Donald Trump has strong views about news media and an interest in asserting them; he’s long claimed credit for ending the careers of journalists and comedians. CNN staff now worry that if their company is sold to Paramount, his friend Larry Ellison may fire two of the network’s most prominent women: Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar.
Somewhat less attention, however, has been paid to the ways in which Trump wants to shape popular culture outside news and late night comedy. The onetime wannabe Broadway producer brought his particular style of late 20th century over-the-top macho taste to political events, elevating professional wrestling to the Republican National Convention and inviting the 1980s icons Sylvester Stallone and Mike Tyson to the White House.
Entertainment studios have thrown the Trumps the occasional bone — Amazon paid $40 million for Brett Ratner’s documentary about Melania Trump, a presumably soft-focus project on the life of the fairly private first lady. But beyond his on-again-off-again relationship with the Murdochs, Trump’s preferences have largely been ignored by the entertainment industry titans who made him a household name. He has been forced to deliver his cultural preferences through online rants about celebrities and programming for political events and at the White House, where he commandeered the presidential aux cord.
But now Larry Ellison, one of Trump’s most prominent financial supporters, owns a second-tier studio, Paramount, and is on the cusp of taking control of the great Warner legacy, with the giant library and sprawling production that come with it.
The film producer Dallas Sonnier predicts “a wave of classically male-driven movies with mentally tough, traditional, courageous, confident heroes. Maybe even a tad cocky, but dedicated to honor and duty. Plus, of course, a few explosions, gun battles, helicopters, fistfights, and car chases!”
Now, the president is offering some creative input on potential upcoming projects.
Trump appears to want to revive the raucous comedies and action movies of the late 1980s to late 1990s. He’s passionate, for instance, about the 1988 Jean Claude Van Damme sports flick Bloodsport. A person directly familiar with the conversations told Semafor that the president of the United States has personally pressed the Paramount owner to revive another franchise from Ratner: Rush Hour, a buddy-cop comedy starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker that blended physical comedy, martial arts, and gags about racial stereotypes.