With traditional posts filling up fast in President Trump’s administration, he’s casting three iconic actors — Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, and Jon Voight — to co-star in his White House sequel. The president-elect tasks the trio with outreach to the entertainment industry as the “Left Coast” asks how it can get back in the good graces of Middle America.

“It is my honor,” President-elect Trump wrote on Truth Social  today, “to announce Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone, to be Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California.” That is where the 45-foot-tall sign spelling the city’s name has become fodder for memes showing it engulfed in flames.

Hollywood’s film and TV studios will have a tough road to recovery after the fires are snuffed out, as will homeowners and businesses. This combined lack of production will constrict the flow of tax dollars to government coffers. The usual plot from Washington is to print money to compensate, but President-elect Trump is looking at the revenue side to help get the cameras rolling.

The box office numbers show that the fires aren’t Hollywood’s only villain. Receipts were $8.7 billion in 2024, down 3.3 percent from 2023, a year hobbled by the actors and writers strikes. In 2019, the last year before the pandemic, the take was $11.3 billion. Using that as a starting point, it’s now down 23.5 percent — almost a full one-quarter.

As Los Angelenos cast about for heroes, the about-to-become 47th president is dispatching Messrs. Gibson, Stallone, and Voight to “serve as Special Envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries, BACK — BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!”

Local Democratic leaders may be tempted to join President Trump’s efforts as they defend themselves against accusations of mismanagement and seek a lifeline. Governor Gavin Newsom is the subject of a second push to recall him. A recall happens to be how the state got its last Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, also an actor.

In September, Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angles cobbled together a task force to find ways to help the industry, just as Trump now seeks to do on the federal level. “California,” the Los Angeles Times wrote at the time, “is simply not competitive with many other states and countries that offer more generous incentives to entice film crews.”

Those suffering from the wildfires have cited the massive tax bills they pay only to find the fire department absent when disaster struck. Likewise, the Golden State’s high-tax and regulation environment have driven studios to havens everywhere from Georgia and New Mexico to Canada, New Zealand, and Slovakia.

According to a report by FilmLA, Hollywood is shrinking fast, with just 23,480 days spent shooting in 2024. That’s a 5.6 percent fall from 2023 and the lowest total except for the 2020 pandemic year. While Messrs. Gibson, Stallone, and Voight are all actors, the group also has experience as directors and producers.

Messrs. Gibson and Stallone understand the massive teams that films employ, which viewers may miss in the fine print as the credits roll. From caterers to key grips to location scouts and stunt men, each salary lost to a rival state is a line item that someone who has had to meet a production deadline understands.

President-elect Trump, who keeps his distance from the political class, is now tapping decades of hands-on experience. “These three very talented people,” he wrote of Messr. Gibson, Stallone, and Voight, “will be my eyes and ears, and I will get done what they suggest. It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood!”