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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.
They are owned by a media company with film studios.
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 the products like an underclass of garbage ... that's who cost the economy $5b.
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;
-
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.
That's the case with most businesses. Investing in your human resources always nets a positive ROI, but corpos can only see one quarter at a time.
I would love to see an experiment where they gave a company a tax incentive if they issued special shares that can only be sold in a life changing emergency that required the funds, or if at least 9 months passes.
I am not sure if it would make a big difference, but I would be fascinated to see if it created any management changes.
Although what I would really love to see is a tax incentive who paid there workers supplementally in shares. Basically you get paid a percent based off what your salary would be, and there is always a minimum and even if revenues fall you still make that minimum. Employee shares would always get preferential voting rights and if the company makes certain metrics they are forced to pay a sizeable percent of the dividends as a bonus to employees. Yes it leans a bit towards socialism, but I think if even a lowely cashier knew that their impact to the company would be directly reflected in their check they would try harder. It's a win/win for the company and employees, only Wallstreet loses something.
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 be just as entertaining...
And those could be funded by a co-op
I don't even think the Marvel movies are entertaining.
Much like Star Wars I think there's a few good ones and the rest just ride the wave.
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?
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.
Aww, fewer super hero movies for y'all.
Yeah.
I'm a big part of the super hero movie problem - I even (eventually) watched and enjoyed "Fant4stic".
But I can do without super hero movies if that's what it takes to make sure the money I'm paying is reaching the people doing the work.