Hollywood on strike

Wont someone please think of the actors😪

It's hard to summon a lot of sympathy for them I know but in fairness the studios are even worse and have a pretty nasty end game in mind.

Most of modern cinema and TV is dreadful, maybe we'll see something better being produced once this is dealt with? Wishful thinking I know.

There isn't a chance in hell of the studios agreeing to anything that'll restrict them too much with AI, they're terrified of being on the back foot again as they were with streaming. The steaming platforms doubly so. None of them want to bind themselves to something that'll put them at a disadvantage to future competitors.

Directors were never at risk, an AI isn't culpable when things go wrong. Oh no things are going wrong quick better swap the manager, might not fix anything but does buy some time and direct the boards/shareholders' ire elsewhere.

It'll end like sags-aftra strike against video game companies, they'll reword the rejected agreement and add in a bit of pabulum that doesn't mean anything while ignoring all the big asks they had aren't anywhere to be seen and then claim victory.

Oh no America's biggest propaganda outlet is in chassis.. oh nooo.. Think of the child actors etc etc

Hollywood has been on strike for years!

nothing original just churn out crap over and over.

when was the last time a movie with a decent plot ‘ story line came out that was purely about the story and not the “stars”?

I kind of agree. While I'd love to see it, it's a bit idealistic. While there are obviously so many ways now to get your content out there and advertise it, the issue the industry is already facing now is so many different streaming services now pushing people back towards piracy.

By the time you set up any sort of independent platform & create and make content for it, both strikes could be over. And even then, it becomes another platform that people have to sign up to, pay for content, that will likely lead to piracy (which would be far more detrimental to an indie platform).

But the thing with indies is, they obviously don't cost nearly as much as other films, and often big stars (such as Ruffalo) will take a fairly minimum wage if they believe in the film, and to not be stuck doing green screen CGI-fests. As much as I do love the Marvel films and stuff, and as much as the actors seem to have a great time making them and have fun with the films, I'm sure a lot of them would relish being able to make smaller, more personal stuff, having already made their fat pay packages with the big-budget stuff.

The only reason for it I can think of, is if that background actor eventually goes on to be successful, then some of these studios already have full scans of their likeness and probably enough voice samples to essentially replicate them. Throw them in as a minor character where the uncanny valley might not be as noticeable (eg. someone on a screen or a hologram).

I mean, why take scans of background actors, since you'll still need physical people to actually be the background actors and paste that likeness onto? The only reason you'd need to own a background actor's likeness in perpetuity and be able to use it without any consent or compensation, is for future-proofing in case that actor becomes successful. I really struggle to think of any non-scummy reason for it.

You must have missed the masterpiece blackbird! Who needs Hollywood...

I thought Maverick was excellent bit of popcorn fun, Super Marios Bros not so much.

The new mission impossible is good as was the most recent John wick. But probably the best film I saw in cinema this year Spider-man: across the spider-verse.

Rye Lane excellent little rom com too and on Disney+

No Spider-Man : across the spider-verse sequel? That would be a shame.

I have literally seen one fast and the furious film, dreadful.

So not about indie's in particular but read a few articles in the last year, talking about a certain type of movie and naming the them different things in each article with some of them were called prestige films, but don't think that fits as they'd nowhere near the scale of the old swords and sandal prestige pictures.

I'll go with the Oscar bait tag as it generally fits.

low to moderate budgets, and just bombing so badly. Only works when you've the studio to bankroll it to keep people happy so they keep making the stuff that actually makes money.

Most of them blaming post covid, streaming, and people only venturing out to big screens for big spectacles.

AI would only be used to push out more of the same crap.

Studios are the reason movies have been terrible for the last decade or so, they're the ones cranking out endless superhero movies because money.

Studios using AI to create product will result in even worse borefests than we've grown accustomed to.

Studios want to have complete control much like labels have had in the music industry for the last decade and a half, we've seen the results with music in that time, bland boring goop where talent used to exist, movies have been similar for a while but they'll be a dead industry much like music if this goes unchallenged.

This happens every few years it would seem.

The reality is that the age of the super hero movie is coming to an end. Disney and Warner have squeezed every last drop out Marvel and DC in the last 10 years or so and there's basically nothing left.

Top grossing movies of the last 10 years:

Avengers: Endgame (Disney)

Star Wars: Episode VII (Disney)

Avengers: Infinity War (Disney)

Spider-Man: No Way Home (Disney/Sony)

Jurassic World (Universal)

The Lion King (Disney)

The Avengers (Disney)

Furious 7 (Universal)

Top Gun: Maverick (Paramount)

Frozen II (Disney)

Disney absolutely dominate now, but all the movies above are 100% "hyper" fantasy hero movies, with not a notion of reality in any of them.

The well has run dry in that not one of those movies is an original or not a sequel.

Even if you look at the top grossing movies for 2023, there is one original, and even that was just fan service for the most part.

This kind of stagnation kind of suits the studios as they can pump the brand for money at the expense of creativeness and new ideas, it's terrible for actors and writers though that are not already in the brand.

I think the age of the Toy/Computer Game character is approaching though (Mario, Sonic, Barbie, etc)

They're not jumping on board or showing solidarity though, they're in the union. At the Oppenheimer premiere, the actors literally had to leave because the strike was confirmed/announced while they were there. It's union rules.

The thing about A-listers actually on the picket lines could be viewed a few different ways; maybe they actually do care about other people regardless of how much they themselves earn and joining the picket is pretty much the very least they can do to show that, or you could also assume the worst that their presence might force studios to make a deal quicker and the actors can get back to earning obscene amounts of money and pat themselves on the back.

Personally I'd say it's a lot more of the former. I mean you mention about how much more the other writers and actors could have made if not for the main actors wages, however the far more likely scenario is that that money just wouldn't have been included in the budget by the studio. The studio isn't going to suddenly spread out extra money not spent among the rest of the cast and crew, they'll just take the money back (or more likely it wouldn't have been allowed for to begin with as these things would have been agreed in advance).

It's like I said earlier, if you focus more on the A-listers and big earners, it'll completely distort your view because in "Hollywood", they're by far the minority.

Again though, if the main actors took a lower fee, that doesn't mean that excess money would go to the rest of the cast/crew. It just wouldn't be included in the budget of the film. That money would just be kept by the studio. The A-list actors negotiate their higher wages usually based on both their abilities and suitability for the role, but also their marketability, how well they can advertise the film, how much they can draw audiences. Hiring them for those 10's of millions is based on the studio believing they will bring in more than double that, compared to an lesser-known actor.

I'm not saying they're not hugely overpaid, but they are also human; ones who know what it was like as a struggling actor. Just because they don't need the money or protections the unions are fighting for, doesn't mean they're completely unaffected by it either in terms of wanting to help fight for those things for other people, because ultimately it's the studio's responsibility to provide those things.

But those people who act for a living seem very sincere.

Residuals affect actors from the bottom to the top. Firstly, Zegler isn't that big a name so I doubt she's making crazy money for it. Secondly plenty of actors do take lower salaries based on the possibility of the movie being a hit and the residuals being where they make their money. Then the less big actors also get residuals so that's tiding over a lot of actors. It's also guaranteeing actors get something a bit fairer.

Streaming has flipped that model on its head. So a film can end up more profitable for a studio based on subscriptions to see certain movies but those who made the movie get cut out of the equation.

But sure, don't think about the logic of the actor's point and just get perpetually outraged. Highly recommend people check the kind of batshit content that account posts...

she shouldnt have made it about her was the point, bad look. The market is going to go where the market goes, in the past a film could have a good or bad run but then become a big hit as a video , physical media, they have cut their receipts to cinema and streaming essentially

by her own account she calls herself a working class actor however she describes her working year as doing as doing 3 episodes a year where she might get 5-8K per episode. I dont see the problem, this is a part time side gig that might turn into something if she becomes popular. Otherwise she should be leveraging this to make extra money or have a separate job that pays the bills

There's an element of people celebrating the death of creative endeavours tbh. AI writing might get away with working for some marvel stuff but beyond that, it would just amount to absolute ****. AI acting, ya that's just gonna be bad for foreseeable. The absence of humanity in a live action movie sounds atrocious.