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Hollywood strikes to cost US economy $5 billion-plus amid lost wages, film delays
(finance.yahoo.com)
this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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Wow, great job with the pro-company/anti-worker framing there Yahoo finance. This is the fault of greedy corporations, not workers demanding a fair share.
How safe you to demand better conditions? Shame on you!!🐷
Oh no, the precious "economy"!
How do you get that from the article?
Incorrect. Hollywood bigwig blowhards who routinely cheat on their accounting and taxes like it's breathing and treat the people who actually create your products like an underclass of garbage ... that's who cost the economy $5b.
But also the strikes and lost wages though.
If they actually cared about the economy, then give the actors and writers what they want and the strike ends, and we can all get a move-on with things.
That's the point of the strike, and the solution is right there in front of the studios.
I’ve got an idea for the studios: come to the table and negotiate in good faith. Show some respect. Nahh never mind, that’s absurd.
Isn’t this just a propaganda piece?
Yes it is. What exactly is the strike costing the economy? Actors and writers opting to forego their own wages in the interest of the collectively not being robbed by the members of the 1% and the mega corporations they run are not stealing money from people. The only thing the strike is doing is lowering the profit margins and short term value of the companies that only got said value by hoarding the wealth generated from the IP and likenesses of the people on strike.
"the economy" is just rich people. No one gives a fuck about "the economy", we care about fair wages. Shut up you rich jerks and just pay people enough to fucking survive.
Yeah pretty sure the actors and stuff out of work only make a drop of that
That's why they ended pensions and have, and are continuing to push all retirement into Wallstreet. That way the average person is chained to "the economy", because otherwise you're completely correct.
The amount the studios are losing from the strike could have paid for the WGA/ SAG requests easily, which makes the studios holding out feel even more ridiculous; but I think it's not about the money for them.
I think they want to send the message that they hold the power, not the workers, to disincentivize/demoralize future strikers. On top of that, I think they are salivating at the thought of never paying a "creative" again; and AI writers rooms and owning the likeness rights of every extra they ever use would certainly make it easy for them.
The studios are dreaming of the day they can ask a computer to generate Iron Man 7, and it'll spit out the script, generate CGI acting (including a rubbery PS3 looking RDJ), and it won't ever need to touch human hands.
The studios want to frame the strike about money (and that is certainly a big issue), but this could very well be a strike for the future of Hollywood's "soul"; which is why I think the studio heads are willing to take such a bath to keep it going
The thing the studios don't seem to appreciate about this is that once they can have an AI generate Iron Man 7, so can any other schlub; you can say you want to watch a movie where Iron Man enters a mini-golf tournament with Genghis Khan and the 1927 New York Yankees and it'll make one for you.
There are 3 possible outcomes, basically:
-
AI is never more than a curiosity as far as movie making and this whole argument was pointless;
-
AI gets good enough to replace a lot of the capital-incentive grunt work of movie making, like VFX, but not high-level creative work like writing / directing / production design, so making AAA movies gets cheaper and the big studios lose power while indie studios gain more;
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AI gets as good at making movies as humans are, in which case we don't need studios at all.
None of these are good for them; the status quo is actually the least bad outcome. The real game, I suspect, is that they hope that they can convince writers that AI is a big enough threat to a) make concessions in other areas to stop it and b) be grateful they're still employed at all; a world where AI actually replaces creative talent on films is a world where we don't need studios at all anymore.
a movie where Iron Man enters a mini-golf tournament with Genghis Khan and the 1927 New York Yankees
Don't give them any ideas LOL.
Overall, I think you're completely correct. So far consumer LLMs cannot come close to anything a human writer can create, but I'm concerned that Hollywood would gladly take the hit on quality to save on writers. I hope the strikes succeed in preventing AI from entering the writing and acting space, but hopefully they don't need to make concessions to prevent it.
As an aside, if everyone could create their own movies with AI, I wonder if studios would simply become IP holding companies (more than they already are). Anyone could make Lethal Weapon 5, but only the studio with the likeness rights (and training data) of Rob McElhenney would be able to have it look like the original actors are present.
These studios ironically would be saving more money if they agreed to the unions' terms.
It is not the strikes that cost the US economy money, it is the greed of absurdly overpaid executives who want to wring every cent of profits out of workers.
Good, I hope it's 10x that when it's all said and done.
Any chance a co-op studio could replace or compete with the big studios? I’m sure the biggest hurdle would be raising enough capital but it would be nice to see the actual actors and film crews taking ownership.
To make cgi filled Marvel movies?
No way.
But we don't need that. There's no real reason movies have to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to be entertaining.
I could live without more marvel movies but they’re still going to be made. It would be nice if the people making the films actually owned them.
My point was those movies can be made for much less and better just as entertaining...
I don't even think the Marvel movies are entertaining.
United Artists was originally conceived with this concept, but like some credit unions and co-ops it got corrupted over time.
Why don't they create their own co-op studio with blackjack and hookers? Their combined talent should be able to, right?
Aww, fewer super hero movies for y'all.