More to come: Aussie director Robert Connolly says US tariffs could slug games and music

Top movie director Robert Connolly has questioned whether US President Donald Trump will slug the entertainment industry further after announcing controversial 100 per cent tariffs on international films.

Robert Connolly and Eric Bana on the set of Force of Nature: The Dry 2.

Top Australian film director Robert Connolly has questioned whether US President Donald Trump will now slug further areas like music and games after his controversial tariff announcement on the international film industry.

Trump earlier this week sent the global film industry into a frenzy with claims he was introducing a 100 per cent on movies “produced in foreign lands” to lure projects back to the US.

“I think it would be a mistake to discuss it simply in the terms of an employment argument because it has clearly got a cultural impact and it is the first tariff that Trump has introduced on IP (intellectual property),” Connolly told Confidential.

“I think that makes it a fascinating huge question mark about whether other tariffs will follow on other aspects of IP like music, games, television, publishing, so watch this space. It was a surprise to a lot of people that he would move on something that is essentially IP but it is an employment issue for him of wanting all of the people that usually make all of these films in America that over the years have watched these films move around the world and get made.”

Connolly is responsible for some of Australia’s biggest film success stories over the past few decades, including The Dry and Paper Planes. His new film, The Surfer, is screening on 1000 screens in the US currently and releases here later this month.

Acclaimed screenwriter, director and producer Robert Connolly suspects US tariffs could hit a raft of Australian creative industries. Picture Glenn Hampson

“The Hollywood studios are masters and always have been at finding countries that are willing to give them huge tax credits and cheaper costs of productions and Australia is very good at attracting those films,” Connolly explained.

“ (But) The Americans have always left. They left when the dollar went over 70 cents. At the beginning of my career, all of the studios in Sydney were full of Mission Impossible II, The Matrix films, the first Superman reboot, the dollar went up and they stopped coming, there were tumbleweeds going down the Fox Studios lot during that time. So we know they are fickle … economically driven the Hollywood studios so if we build an entire industry with infrastructure around having all of these Hollywood films come here and don’t simultaneously have a really strong, deep, resilient, local industry, then we are vulnerable. In a healthy ecosystem we have both.”

Connolly added that the Australian industry could also look to focus less on Hollywood and more to other countries to bring their productions here.