When it comes to politics, Hollywood might be mistaken for a one-party town. But for the two names at the top of the Republican presidential ticket, the ties to Hollywood run deep.
JD Vance | From Ohio's Own Problem to Everyone's Problem
WME has represented both former President Donald Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance. While Trump is no longer a client, Vance is still with the mega-agency, which continues to collect commissions from the Ohio senator thanks to his 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.” WME also has at least one huge Vance commission in the pipeline. Sources say WME negotiated an $8 million deal for him to write a sequel in 2017.
Meanwhile, Vance and WME are raking in big bucks from “Hillbilly Elegy.” According to the VP candidate’s financial disclosures, he earned $823,132 in royalties from the book in 2020 and 2021 alone (WME takes a 15% cut, the standard rate for literary sales). In 2023, Vance took in less than $50,000 in royalties, but that figure is set to skyrocket in 2024 as the book returned to the No. 1 spot on The New York Times bestseller list after he was announced as Trump’s running mate. (HarperCollins recently said that the book, which spawned the 2020 Ron Howard film for Netflix, sold 650,000 copies in the first few days after Vance joined the Republican Party.) And when Netflix won a bidding war for film rights in 2019, it paid $45 million for the package, with Vance taking a cut of the windfall. In recent weeks, the film has returned to Netflix’s top 10 list amid rising ratings.
Some conservatives in the industry, such as Amanda Milius, who directed the hit 2020 documentary about Trump, “The Plot Against the President,” criticize Hollywood's MAGA hypocrisy.
