Paramount CEO David Ellison was meeting on Monday with members of the House Ways & Means Committee to promote a federal film tax incentive, sources said.
Ellison and Chief Legal Officer Makan Delrahim were among those meeting with the lawmakers. The idea of establishing a more robust federal incentive has drawn support from members on both sides of the aisle, amid concerns over the flight of productions overseas.
The Ellison meeting is taking place on the same day that California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, led 11 other states in suing to block Paramount’s proposed merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. Paramount has said that the combination actually would boost a needed rival to Netflix, but the lawsuit claims that it will give the company more market power to extract favorable terms from theatrical exhibitors and cable distributors.
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has been working on legislation, but has not yet introduced a bill. He said in March that “state programs simply cannot substitute for the kind of globally competitive federal tax incentive that is needed to bring production back to American soil and stop its offshoring.”
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Representatives from guilds and unions also have been lobbying for a federal incentive, along with figures like Noah Wyle and producer Chris Fenton. Politico first reported on Ellison’s meeting.
A challenge for any incentive bill would be the legislative calendar this year, as lawmakers have just a couple of weeks before summer recess, then return to face another end-of-fiscal year government funding deadline on Sept. 30. Congress is expected to be out of session in October for midterm campaigns.
Lobbying for an incentive has picked up since President Donald Trump threatened to try to impose tariffs on film productions, although there is some question of whether he has the authority or means to do so. Industry groups have instead tried to direct the administration to the carrot rather than the stick, urging the president to consider an incentive instead.
At the recent Mark Twain Prize at the Kennedy Center, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick told Deadline that the administration is still studying the issue, while noting the bevy of state film incentives. For years, different states have been in a race to offer the more generous incentive packages, hoping to lure productions from California, but increasingly concerns have centered on jobs going to other countries.
“The federal government is a national thing, and the states are particular, and you got to find the right balance,” Lutnick said. “We are a country with federal laws and state laws, and trying to find the right balance, that that’s what we’re studying.”
