Hollywood Strike

[KingRoyal]

Sag-Aftra to join WGA in strike, first time writers and actors have jointly striked in 60 years

Hearing that the cast of Oppenheimer walked out mid-premiere to join the strike, too

This will functionally shut down Hollywood for the duration of the strength, which will finally give us blessed relief and a chance to catch up on things

[Thad]

Deadline: Hollywood Studios’ WGA Strike Endgame Is To Let Writers Go Broke Before Resuming Talks In Fall

Receiving positive feedback from Wall Street since the WGA went on strike May 2, Warner Bros Discovery, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Paramount and others have become determined to “break the WGA,” as one studio exec blatantly put it.

To do so, the studios and the AMPTP believe that by October most writers will be running out of money after five months on the picket lines and no work.

“The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” a studio executive told Deadline. Acknowledging the cold-as-ice approach, several other sources reiterated the statement. One insider called it “a cruel but necessary evil.”

The studios and streamers’ next think financially strapped writers would go to WGA leadership and demand they restart talks before what could be a very cold Christmas. In that context, the studios and streamers feel they would be in a position to dictate most of the terms of any possible deal.

Followed by this update the AMPTP issued, presumably after their lawyers reminded them that labor laws exist and expaining your plan to intentionally violate them to the press is generally considered inadvisable even if you ask them not to print your name:

Publicly, the AMPTP are refuting the so-called October surprise.

“These anonymous people are not speaking on behalf of the AMPTP or member companies, who are committed to reaching a deal and getting our industry back to work,” a spokesperson for the organization says.

The Verge: Actors say Hollywood studios want their AI replicas — for free, forever

In a statement about the strike, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) said that its proposal included “a groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors’ digital likenesses for SAG-AFTRA members.”

When asked about the proposal during the press conference, Crabtree-Ireland said that “This ‘groundbreaking’ AI proposal that they gave us yesterday, they proposed that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get one day’s pay, and their companies should own that scan, their image, their likeness and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity on any project they want, with no consent and no compensation. So if you think that’s a groundbreaking proposal, I suggest you think again.”

This will functionally shut down Hollywood for the duration of the strength, which will finally give us blessed relief and a chance to catch up on things

Only until Disney decides Russell T Davies' pitch to turn Doctor Who into a neverending cavalcade of spinoffs like Marvel and Star Wars is sounding pretty good right now.

[Crick]

My conspiracy theory for years was that Disney was pushing de-aging scenes in every Star War and Marvel movie as a way to R&D the tech to graft the faked face onto an actor.

Infinite Star Wars with the OG cast, infinite Indiana Jones, whatever Marvel configuration for years.

I hope they bust this before it starts in earnest.

[Grath]

I mean, they're already doing that with Star Wars, between Deepfake Luke, Uncanny Valley Leia and Tarkin, remixing another actor's performance with James Earl Jones's voice for Darth Vader in Obi-Wan.

[Thad]

remixing another actor's performance with James Earl Jones's voice for Darth Vader in Obi-Wan.

uhhhhhhhhhh

[Grath]

remixing another actor's performance with James Earl Jones's voice for Darth Vader in Obi-Wan.

uhhhhhhhhhh

Was this how you found out that Darth Vader's voice in Obi-Wan was another actor's performance, turned into James Earl Jones's voice using Respeecher "AI" technology?

[nosimpleway]

uhhhhhhhhhh

To be fair the issue isn't "David Prowse in the suit, JEJ does the voice", it's "Hayden Christensen in the suit, a digitally-tortured AI-generated voice".

[KingRoyal]

When James Earl Jones saw the final cut of Star Wars, he insisted that Prowse get the acting credit since it was his performance that made Vader what it was, with Jones just providing the voice. And that's a point of view that real actors would have.

You know executives are gonna have people be Vader, Luke, Leia or whatever and argue that because the digital performance is the real star, they don't have to pay them above whatever the base negotiated rate is, or even just try and classify them all as stunt doubles for someone who is not actually in the production

Anyway, all power to Sag-Aftra and the WAG I hope they kill Hollywood

[Thad]

remixing another actor's performance with James Earl Jones's voice for Darth Vader in Obi-Wan.

uhhhhhhhhhh

Was this how you found out that Darth Vader's voice in Obi-Wan was another actor's performance, turned into James Earl Jones's voice using Respeecher "AI" technology?

Yes, that's why my name is in the comments.

When James Earl Jones saw the final cut of Star Wars, he insisted that Prowse get the acting credit since it was his performance that made Vader what it was, with Jones just providing the voice. And that's a point of view that real actors would have.

You know executives are gonna have people be Vader, Luke, Leia or whatever and argue that because the digital performance is the real star, they don't have to pay them above whatever the base negotiated rate is, or even just try and classify them all as stunt doubles for someone who is not actually in the production

Sure. They paid Jones for the rights to continue using his voice, and that's a good thing, but the actor whose voice they're digitally altering to sound like him is doing the real work, and should be paid a fair rate for it.

I do think that studios that rely too heavily on combining cut-rate actors with digital postprocessing are going to find that audiences can tell the difference. In the games space I'm specifically picturing late '90s/early aughts voice acting, and how eventually the industry realized they needed real-ass card-carrying professional VAs. A bad VA is still a bad VA, no matter what you do to their voice in post.

But yeah they need to hammer this stuff out right the hell now, both for the benefit of the actors whose voices and likenesses are being used and the ones who are doing the actual work underneath.

[KingRoyal]

Sure. They paid Jones for the rights to continue using his voice, and that's a good thing, but the actor whose voice they're digitally altering to sound like him is doing the real work, and should be paid a fair rate for it.

That's what I mean. He should be paid a fair rate, but from a exec's point of view they'll probably treat them like a stunt double. This could mean that you'll have actors filling big roles like Luke Skywalker and paid the lowest rates, maybe even less than the licensing fee for Hamill's likeness. Which, of course, a good contract would solve

The real extortion will probably come from paying actors for like an hour in a scan, signing a work-for-hire contract or whatever and then just digitally inserting them wherever without pay. Or, more realistically, having them do work that would have been several days, weeks, months on set and paying them the equivalent of a sound effect licensing fee

And that's just for live action. Voice actors already had their field invaded and taken over by celebrities, now there's a chance a lot of gigs will start turning into celebrity replacement ones

[Thad]

That's what I mean. He should be paid a fair rate, but from a exec's point of view they'll probably treat them like a stunt double. This could mean that you'll have actors filling big roles like Luke Skywalker and paid the lowest rates, maybe even less than the licensing fee for Hamill's likeness. Which, of course, a good contract would solve

Yeah, I added a couple paragraphs at the end on an edit; not sure if you saw them before responding.

The real extortion will probably come from paying actors for like an hour in a scan, signing a work-for-hire contract or whatever and then just digitally inserting them wherever without pay.

Yeah, this shit is expensive, and it's really only cost-effective in two cases: either if you're dealing with a big star who's even more expensive, or if you're making it up in volume by reusing the same actor over and over again.

(Of course, as in the Luke Skywalker, "this actor literally can't play that role at that age anymore without adding some computer trickery" can be another factor besides cost. But while we've primarily seen this play out in the big franchises with recognizable actors, there's a lot of as-yet-untapped potential for ripping talent off all the way up and down the scale.)

[KingRoyal]

I, personally, would not mind if they recast him. There's a lot about Solo that I didn't like, including it's lead, but the idea that Han Solo can be recast, and that the new actor can have a different take, wasn't one of those things

Which does bring up the question, if the studios can't use these characters without having to use these deep fake tricks to keep them going, should they even be making these characters or making these films?

I'm probably the wrong person to be asking these questions, since I think tapping the older actors to revise their old roles is less meaningful story beat and more money-making gimmick

[atog]

2023: man all the box office buster leading roles all look virtually the same
2025: man all the box office buster leading roles are all literally Harrison Ford and Halle Berry reskins

[Mongrel]

One observation I thought interesting is that AI does indeed have the potential to be industry-disrupting, but actually far more so for the producers than the actors or writers.

Of course it would be a nice thought, that the Studios were inadvertently racing to their destruction, but I expect Disney-style IP laws to lock everything down in some sort of permanent copyright serfdom is their end goal. A truly free market is never something that sort of asshole is interested in.

[Mongrel]

Ron Perlman has some words of warning for whoever said they were going to drag out the strike

(can't embed youtube jorts)

[Grath]

(Youtube Jorts are just Youtube videos with unusual URLs, change https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LLhgPkn_AK4 to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLhgPkn_AK4 and then you can embed it.)

[Mongrel]

Ah!

Incidentally, the consensus is that the 'who' in this case was Bob Iger. Doesn't necessarily mean they're right, but that's the name most actors willing to make a statement about it (on or off the record) have been pointing to.

[Friday]

I'm not gonna lie lie, if Ron Perlman called me a motherfucker I would immediately run away regardless of context.

[Thad]

And that's just for live action. Voice actors already had their field invaded and taken over by celebrities, now there's a chance a lot of gigs will start turning into celebrity replacement ones

I think the number of cases where this would be practical (from a studio perspective) is limited but significant.

One is looping. I think there's a pretty good chance that this is going to completely change how ADR is done.

The other is what we've been talking about: sequels or spinoffs to existing franchises with actors who are already closely associated with the roles. If Clone Wars were created today, would they still cast James Arnold Taylor to do an impression of Ewan McGregor, or would they modify some other actor's performance to sound like Ewan McGregor? (Would Ewan McGregor have gotten the job in the first place, or would they have done some weird shit to make some other actor look and sound like a young Alec Guinness?) Where What-If? mostly uses the original MCU actors as voices but replaces a few of them with soundalikes, would they still use soundalikes, or would they add Downey, Evans, et al's voices with AI?

It's not really comparable to celebrities replacing professional VAs, because that's effectively an advertising thing -- studios spend more money on big-name actors on the assumption that people are likelier to go see an animated movie if the Rock or whoever is in it. I really don't see how that translates to "some actor you've never heard of who's been made to sound like the Rock", unless, again, you're making a sequel and can't get him.

I, personally, would not mind if they recast him. There's a lot about Solo that I didn't like, including it's lead, but the idea that Han Solo can be recast, and that the new actor can have a different take, wasn't one of those things

Of course, but whether or not we like the end result from an artistic perspective is an almost entirely separate question from what's at issue in the strike and the negotiations. It's only relevant insofar as, if audiences get sick of this AI gimmickry and it starts to affect the bottom line, the studios will stop doing it.

Aside from that, the question of whether I like it has a very different answer from how I think actors should be compensated for it.

[Thad]

Incidentally, the consensus is that the 'who' in this case was Bob Iger. Doesn't necessarily mean they're right, but that's the name most actors willing to make a statement about it (on or off the record) have been pointing to.

I don't doubt it's an accurate statement of Iger's intentions, but I'm a little skeptical he'd say it out loud to the press. I'd find it easier to believe coming from Zaslav, or one of the Redstones. I could definitely see one of the Murdochs saying it if they were still in that business.

Really there's a very long list of studio execs who I would find it very easy to believe would say that. Iger does not strike me as a man who makes public statements without running them by legal first.