…nope. Because the technology simply isn’t there yet. Not be a country mile. Not to sustain entire TV shows and movies without spending megabucks. And if those AI reproductions are of name actors (even if they signed a release) the lawsuits would be legendary.
JMS had this to say about AI actors the other day that really says it all.
https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/1679258291199971329
https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/1678707315632148480
I might have been the last writer’s strike (last TV/movie actors SAG strike longer than a day was in 1980) but I’m not sure that was a factor. It was in 2007 and I think reality TV started to become more prominent starting in the late 90s. ( It also depends on what you consider “reality TV” - are you including only Big Brother/Survivor type shows or do you also include court shows , the bar/hotel/restaurant makeover and home renovation shows and the documentary-type shows about crab fisherman , etc? )
I hope that this strike loosens the bizarre stranglehold that unions have on entertainment in general. Why in the name of common sense do actors, writers, and musicians want to belong to a union anyway? Unions – to the limited extent that they make sense anywhere – belong only on blue-collar jobs that have genuine safety issues.
It’s not true. The big step up for reality TV was when two things happened:
Survivor was a surprise massive hit in the summer of 2000. We had countless clones of this afterwards, including Amazing Race(still here!) and The Mole, etc.
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, which temporarily increased a boost of dirt cheap prime time network game shows.
The truth is, Survivor was a huge hit and remains a very inexpensive production even today. Once they realized people love this sort of thing, networks ran away with it.
You really need to label Performance Art before you drop it on people, otherwise they might think you are serious.
The problem SAG/Aftra have is that they are not negotiating from a position of strength. There are way too many independent, non-union productions available now, and too many entertainment options in general for public pressure to help the unions as much as they did in the past.
Indiana Jones has been getting beaten at the box office by ‘The Sound of Freedom’, an independent film from religious production company Angel Studios. Those people are probably still union since Jim Caveziel and Mira Sorvino are in rhe movie, but other productions aren’t.
Another example of a bad outcome for the unions: The network late night shows are on repeats, but FOX is not union and they are showing first runs, hurting the union-backed networks.
Youtube stars have upped their production game, and could easily be recruited to fill streaming slots. And there is plenty of legacy content.
Also, tye strike may have the unintended consequence of the studios working even harder to use AI.
Oops, sorry! Yes, I meant the writers strike. I’m thinking of shows like the Kardashians, Real Housewives of…, and every c-list celebrity and their spouse that had a tv show.
Sounds like the dates don’t work tho.
By Fox, I am presuming you are referring to Greg Gutfeld’s show on Fox News; regular Fox hasn’t had a weeknight late night show since Chevy Chase bombed 30 years ago. I sincerely doubt that there is much overlap between the audiences who were watching Jimmy Fallon / Jimmy Kimmel / Stephen Colbert and the people already watching Gutfeld.
I am not too sure of this either. The biggest stars who are YouTubing are making incomes in the millions of dollars already. Why they would give up the YouTube platform, where they have complete creative control (subject to YouTube’s user guidelines, of course) to work for a network where they are going to endure notes and other executive hassles? They may not even get financial compensation that would be remunerative for this to even make sense.
NBC already had a test-run for this sort of thing, in a way. They hired Lilly Singh, one of the biggest YouTubers, to host their 1:30 AM show. Singh had a huge following online and was reportedly earning in excess of $10 million a year already. The late night show on the network lasted only 2 years.
If YouTubers could be recruited to do shows for the networks that would make financial sense and get the same or better ratings than what the networks are currently producing, the networks would have already begun doing it en masse. The fact that they haven’t speaks volumes.
Are there any of these other productions that you can specifically name? I am really asking, because I am trying to think of any from the last couple of years (particularly any that didn’t involve an established actor and that would have been non-union) and I cannot come up with any examples.
The producers and studios have likely been working as hard as they possibly can to develop AI and have probably just continued unabated. That is why the actors are going on strike now.
Like getting shot and killed by actor with an improperly handled prop, for instance?
Or decapitated by a helicopter?
Isn’t that “Sound of Freedom” movie one of those that churches are threatening their congregants with hellfire if they don’t go see it (metaphorically speaking)? I remember churches organizing big bus convoys to go see The Passion of the Christ to boost the box office. I’ve never seen it, because I’m not into torture porn.
One thing that I wonder is that while it can be true that Sound of Freedom is doing better in recent days compared to the latest Indiana Jones movie, is that is doing better in part by being released recently, not very fair to compare until the movies are out of theaters, FWIW, Indiana Jones is still ahead in the box office.
As of today in Domestic Box office: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/
1 Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Gross: $121,676,867
Theaters: 4,600
Total Gross: $145,359,865
Release Date: Jun 30
2 Sound of Freedom
Gross: $85,498,581
Theaters: 3,265
Total Gross: $85,498,581
Release Date: Jul 4
However, one big point against what Sam has been saying here about using this movie as an example of why to dismiss union leverage. That dismissal works in this case by discounting the world market, worldwide the Indiana Jones movie is around $302,359,865, Sound of Freedom is the same $85,498,581 worldwide including the US one, because there is almost no market for it outside the USA.
I haven’t heard that, but I have seen pastors promote it online. I have responded that I avoid movies from Jim Caviziel because he promotes Qanon and said that Trump was selected by the Holy Trinity to be president. He also said that liberals drink baby blood or something.
They rarely respond.
The Sound of Freedom BO involves shenanigans.
Certainly Gutfeld has been moved to 9, and someone called Trace Gallagher now has the 11 pm slot. I have never seen his show, so I don’t know how it fits in.
I wasn’t thinking of them leaving Youtube, but merely selling their content. There is precedence for this already. Brian Brushwood’s “Hacking the System” got picked up by a streamer. But also, Youtube is trying to become a streaming video service with regular shows, as is Twitter and probably other social media.
But Youtube is vulnerable to being poached by streaming, There is still a big allure to making it in TV and working with giant production companies and such. And Youtube tends to burn people out.
The Daily Caller now has a movie production business and they’ve put out several movies already:
Then there were the independent Atlas Shrugged movies, which I have not seen.
I don’t know which of these, if any, were non-union. But they are conservative films and some star actors like Gina Carano who were basically kicked out of Hollywood, so I don’t even know if they can get union cooperation.
But some of them have actors who still work in mainstream like Caveziel and Nick Searcy, and I assume they can’t do work outside their union, so I’m not sure. Can movies mix union and non-union workers? Will the union cameramen work on a production with non-union actors? I really don’t know.
I expect the broadcast networks might air some of the shows that were previously only available on their streaming platforms, even if they’re not first-run shows. They could also import shows from elsewhere; during the pandemic, for instance, NBC broadcast a Canadian medical drama in prime time. I doubt that anything on YouTube has the production standards to appear on a major broadcast network.
ABC announced they’re going to air Ms Marvel. Presumably to promote The Marvels, but I can also see it as a test to air other Disney+ shows.
…this isn’t correct by any stretch of the imagination. Hollywood has ground to a halt. Everything has stopped. And more importantly, the writers and actors have nothing to lose. The last five years or so have already basically rolled back many of the gains and protections they had won over the years.
How many exactly? And how are you imagining they would slot into the existing ecosystem? There are 168,000 members of IATSE. How many of them do you think would cross the picket line to take part in a non-union production? And how many non-union gaffers, electricians, set dresser and armourers, production sound mixers do you think have the requisite experience to be able to staff the hundreds of movies and television shows that are currently on hold?
The Sound of Freedom is being astroturfed. The numbers are borked.
First run of which shows in particular? Gutfeld has no credited writers. And Trace Gallagher’s Fox News @ Night appears to be a news and current affairs show that features “interviews and political analysis”.
This is a lot more complicated than you think. The streamers won’t want to dilute their brand: and neither will the YouTube stars. And if the streaming sites start to replace original content with “Old People React to WAP” thats the sort of thing that makes investors nervous.
AI…you mean the thing that can’t even write a 22-minute filmable script yet?
This isn’t an “unintended consequence.” Its very much on the cards right now. Its part of what the strike is all about.
Picked up for a single season back in 2015, apparently. Not exactly a model for success.
Youtube practically stopped doing that when they closed down Youtube Red back in 2018. And Twitter’s video offering aren’t going to go anywhere.
Do you know what else “burns people out?”
Hollywood. Its why the actors and the writers have gone on strike.
Will union camera people cross the picket line to work on a non-union production? Absolutely no-fricken-way.
To air on the ABC broadcast network a show from the Disney Plus streaming service to promote an upcoming theatrical Disney movie seems a clever bit of corporate synergy.
And yet Disney is seriously considering dumping (selling) the ABC broadcast network along with other assets.
If you’re an actor and currently working on a project for which you are both actor and producer, whose side are you on?
I sense the strike will be a long one. There are way too many entertainment sources out there and if there’s nothing to see in the theaters, then there are a ton of entertainment choices to stream.
What about all the foreign productions? Korean drama is already huge on Netflix, and only going to get bigger.