Mel Gibson vows to ‘fix’ Hollywood as Trump’s special ambassador

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Mel Gibson is promising to make Hollywood great again, telling Fox News host Sean Hannity that he can solve many of the problems plaguing the Democrat-run city following devastating wildfires that have destroyed thousands of homes and killed 24 people.

But rather than leave, Gibson, 69, is planning to stay put to help his fellow residents rebuild.

“A lot of people have left, and I don’t blame them,” Gibson said during an appearance on Hannity. “It didn’t suit them anymore. Even … people who were liberal, it didn’t suit them anymore. But if everybody leaves, what’s going to happen?”

Gibson’s remarks came after Hannity said that he was driven out of New York City because of “crime … high taxes … burdensome regulations.”

But Gibson vowed to work with Donald Trump after the president called Hollywood a “very troubled” city.

“(Residents) are going somewhere else because it’s more cost-effective. There (are) just a lot of prohibitive regulations and things in the way that I think could be lifted … But I think it can be fixed,” Gibson said.

Earlier this month, Trump named Gibson and his fellow actors Sylvester Stallone and Jon Voight as “Special Ambassadors” to help bring business lost to “foreign countries” back to Hollywood.

“It is my honour to announce Jon Voight, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone, to be Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California,” Trump, 78, wrote on Truth Social.

“They will 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! These three very talented people 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!”

Gibson, who jokingly asked if “the position comes with an ambassador’s residence,” pledged to examine different ways to incentivize productions to shoot in California.

“I know (California Governor Gavin) Newsom gave some tax incentives, but maybe not enough because it’s still not working. There are other things that offset that,” he told Hannity.

The Lethal Weapon star went on to explain that it is cheaper to shoot a film scene for three days in Europe than to work on the sequence “down the road” in Los Angeles.

“There’s something wrong there, and I think there are solutions. I know (former governor) Arnold (Schwarzenegger) tried to level the playing field years ago. He couldn’t do it because … there were obstacles,” he said.

Meanwhile, Gibson said Trump’s weekend arrival in Los Angeles as city officials deal with the fallout from this month’s wildfires is “like daddy arrived.”

“I’m glad Trump’s here at the moment,” Gibson told Hannity. “It’s like daddy arrived and he’s taking his belt off, you know? So, I think he’ll get some results here quickly.”

Gibson, who lost his home in the blaze, was an outspoken critic of city officials in the aftermath of the disaster.

“Well, first I thought it was, ‘Oh gee, bad luck, tragedy.’ But then I came to realize that it was monumental mismanagement by our elected officials; and that’s the nicest thing you can say about it,” Gibson said on the debut episode of the Arroyo Grande podcast.

“You got nothing but rampant crime, acute homelessness, high taxes, mismanagement of water, firefighters, defunding the department, and we’re supposed to trust them with millions of dollars to sort of remake where we live? It’s our city, it’s the city of the people, and they have another plan. … When have you ever seen the government ‘build back better’?” he told host Raymond Arroyo.

Elsewhere, during an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Gibson said that the fires were a sign that society is headed towards “collapse.”

“The whole state is so poorly managed,” Rogan said, taking a swipe at Newsom. “He gets on TV and pretends everything’s great … ‘California’s the best, we have the best state, we have the most amazing economy,’ like, you’re out of your f***ing mind, dude’ … he ruined the state … It’s unbelievable that society can crumble that quickly.”

“It doesn’t take long,” Gibson replied. “I read a book once by Jared Diamond called Collapse … It’s all the things you need for a civilization to cave in and collapse. A lot of those things are present, all those earmarks, the precursors of a collapse, they’re present in our time.”

mdaniell@postmedia.com