Charles Rivkin has an enviable view.
From his desk within the Motion Picture Assn. workplaces, Rivkin can look out on the White House, a reminder of the proximity to energy that comes with being Hollywood’s major lobbyist. Rivkin, who took over as chief government officer of the MPA in 2017, has been on the forefront of the movie enterprise’ legislative battles over every part from tax incentives to pandemic insurance coverage.
He’s additionally labored to broaden the coalition of content material creators, welcoming Netflix to the fold in 2019 as the primary streaming service to affix the affiliation — becoming a member of Disney, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. All six MPA members, in addition to Apple TV+ and Amazon type the governing board of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), a worldwide coalition of 35 members devoted to preventing piracy.
In 2019 Rivkin additionally rebranded the MPA, which had beforehand been generally known as the Motion Picture Assn. of America, to replicate the worldwide nature of the leisure enterprise. About the centennial celebration, he tells Variety “I really believe that this hundred years is just the first episode of a long-running series. There’s so much more to come.”
The MPA has traditionally been extraordinarily centered on piracy. With COVID and extra streaming, was there a surge in pirated films?
Our analysis exhibits there was an preliminary spike in piracy throughout the pandemic and then it stabilized. There’s quite a lot of nice content material on the market and persons are going to attempt to steal nice content material if they will.
How are you able to fight the will of individuals to look at films at no cost even when it means downloading pirated copies?
We fashioned the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, which is the world’s premier pressure in preventing piracy. It has the six Motion Picture Assn. studio members, and I used to be thrilled to carry on Apple TV Plus as a member. It’s an endless struggle as a result of piracy morphs with know-how. MPA helped cross a legislation referred to as the Protecting Lawful Streaming Act. It had been a felony for piracy companies to supply downloads, however a misdemeanor to supply streams. It’s troublesome to pursue instances which can be simply misdemeanors; they don’t get the eye of legislation enforcement as a lot as a felony does. So we’ve modified that.
It’s been 10 years for the reason that U.S. and China struck an settlement permitting 34 overseas movies yearly to be launched within the nation. Has there been any progress on elevating that restrict or have any hopes of a brand new deal collapsed?
It is absolutely, actually laborious for our members to get their movies into China. The present quota permits for not less than 34 revenue-sharing movies a yr and, by the way in which, final yr we solely bought 21. This yr might be extra promising; as of March 1, China has allowed eight American films in 2022. There’s no query that China is likely one of the largest, fastest-growing markets on the planet. It has greater than 80,000 screens versus 40,000 or so within the U.S. At the identical time, the protectionism that limits our entry to their business stops us from realizing the complete potential of that market, and the commerce obstacles that China has put up on our enterprise function a large subsidy to China’s home movie firms, which places American jobs and American exports in danger. China’s consumption of their very own movies has elevated dramatically.
There’s quite a lot of unpredictability and uncertainty available in the market that comes with a value to the U.S. financial system. Given the continued tensions between the U.S. and China, each single business is making an attempt to determine learn how to greatest mitigate the affect on their very own enterprise.
This is the tenth anniversary of the [agreement] a lot extra must get labored out. We solely get a 25% income share, which is lower than the 40% [that] is the usual in the remainder of the world. Our movies are sometimes pitted in opposition to one another so that they cannibalize one another. China has made little effort to extend shares in film ticket gross sales since 2012.
The MPA has additionally been lobbying for extra state tax incentives for movie and TV manufacturing. What is your pitch to states, notably these dealing with price range shortfalls?
The pitch is financial progress. The pitch is exponential return on your funding. Beyond that, there’s smooth advantages for these states, that are a rise in tourism and job coaching. I’ve been on the telephone with 31 governors throughout the pandemic, and I’m speaking to them about how our business is shovel-ready to develop native economies. When a serious movement image goes to a city or metropolis in America, on common it pumps about $250,000 a day into the native financial system. We’re speaking about jobs for caterers and native workmen. They are jobs that in lots of instances don’t require faculty levels and but pay considerably greater than the common minimal wage.
Some international locations have nationwide movie incentive applications. Will the U.S. ever have a federal movie credit score?
We’re working with a number of pals in Congress to attempt to push the concept of a federal incentive or labor tax credit score, which might incentivize our business to make films in components of the nation that don’t have these state applications now. That’s one thing different international locations like Canada, Australia and the U.Okay. already do.
Many states with beneficiant incentives equivalent to Louisiana or Georgia are extra conservative. There have been threats to ban manufacturing when a few of these states handed restrictive legal guidelines on abortion. Will there all the time be stress between a left-leaning business like Hollywood and the states the place it does enterprise?
Hollywood has the status of being a left-leaning business, I can’t debate that. But these selections are left as much as the member studios. There isn’t any means I can say Hollywood feels this manner or that about boycotting Georgia. What does Stacey Abrams really feel about boycotting Georgia? She doesn’t prefer it. She believes a boycott of Georgia would end in quite a lot of jobs being misplaced.