The next Mission Impossible has just been announced

There’s a new tariff in town. US President Donald Trump’s announcement of a 100% tariff on film imports surely made many Burbank studio executives choke on their Monday-morning kale juice.

- JYOTIRMOY SAHA

Even though foreign films are hardly any competition to Hollywood fare in America, the question remains, what exactly constitutes a ‘Made in USA’ film? It’s like asking what characterizes an American cheeseburger. Is it the bread, the mince, the cheese or the patty flipper in the kitchen?

Modern film production pipelines are a confluence of talent and processes from far and wide across the world. The $2.8 billion-earning Avengers finale, adapted from US comic books, features American Chris Evans as Captain America, Australian Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Canadian Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne and Briton Karen Gillian as Nebula. The film was shot in Georgia, New York, Scotland and England. Thousands of visual-effects (VFX) shots were put together in a dozen VFX studios in India, Canada, New Zealand and elsewhere. If Trump's tariff is applied to anything with foreign fingerprints, then good luck finding a single blockbuster that doesn't qualify. Another wrinkle is presented by foreign stories. Amazon subsidiary MGM Studios owns the quintessentially British James Bond franchise. Agent 007 reports to MI6 (not Langley), which takes him to London, Scotland or wherever the next villain’s lair is. Such franchises with foreign elements would wonder if Bond needs to change his shaken martini to a stirred bourbon Coke to dodge the tariff.