Hollywood paralyzed due to the largest strike: filming is suspended

The film and television industry in Hollywood was effectively blocked. Actors joined the writers’ strike on Thursday night, kicking off the biggest strike in the industry in over 60 years. The “double strike” of both unions, recalls the BBC, was the first since 1960 when the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) was headed by the future president of the United States, and at that time still actor Ronald Reagan. The Hollywood artists themselves protested for the last time in 1980 – but in terms of scope, those events cannot be compared with today’s ones.

There are two reasons for the current riot: the film actors’ union wants the streaming giants to agree to a fairer distribution of profits and better working conditions, and it also wants to protect movie stars from “usurpation” by digital copies.

The union is seeking assurances that artificial intelligence (AI) and computer-generated faces and voices will not be used to replace live actors. This is not the first time such concerns about AI have been raised. So, in May, the “godfather” of artificial intelligence, Jeffrey Hinton, left Google, warning that chatbots could soon become smarter than people. And while futurologists are talking about the “rise of the machines”, Hollywood workers are already opposing the general digitalization that has affected the film industry as well.

Also in May, the US Center for AI Security released a statement backed by dozens of leading technical experts. It argued that AI could be used to create disinformation that could destabilize society. At worst, they say, the machines could become so intelligent that they take over, leading to the extinction of humanity.

But already now, one of the most disturbing and already bearing fruit is the revolution in the world of work. An earlier report from investment bank Goldman Sachs said that AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs worldwide. This figure, according to the study, corresponds to a quarter of all the work that people currently do in the US and Europe.

Undoubtedly, the entertainment industry is becoming one of the main targets in the sight of artificial intelligence. American director Christopher Nolan (by the way, Nolan is preparing to release the film “Oppenheimer”, which is based on the biography of the “father” of the American atomic bomb, theoretical physicist Robert Oppenheimer) in an interview with Fox News noted: “Now there are a lot of concerns in the film industry about how AI will affect this area. The reality is that it has already been used and used for years and it will continue to evolve. We need to hold people accountable for how they use this tool. I think the unions are doing this job right now and it will serve us well.”

But while the strike lasts, actors not only cannot act in films, but they cannot even promote those films that have already been made. As a result, for example, stars Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon and Emily Blunt walked out of the London premiere of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer on Thursday night when a strike was called. Nolan told viewers that they had “gone to write their picket posters”, adding that he supported the actors in the fight.

Picked up the growing anger and other celebrities. Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk, Sex and the City’s Cynthia Nixon and Hollywood veteran Jamie Lee Curtis expressed their support for the picket on social media.

The picket itself will begin on Friday morning local time near the California headquarters of the streaming platform Netflix, and then move on to Paramount, Warner Bros and Disney.

Many of the actors’ demands reflect those of writers in the Writers Guild of America, reports The New York Times. Both unions say they are trying to provide a living wage for workers, especially those who make movies or TV shows for streaming services.

Writers fear that studios will also use AI to create scripts. Actors, in turn, worry that this technology could be used to create digital copies of themselves (or that performances could be digitally altered) without payment or approval.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which handles deals on behalf of Hollywood companies, said it was able to strike a sensible deal at a difficult time for the industry, however, the Alliance’s press release added, “Unfortunately, the union has chosen a path that will lead to to the financial hardships of countless thousands of people dependent on the industry.”

Another requirement for streaming services is that actors must receive a higher base salary and residual payments, that is, payments to actors for reruns of films and programs in which they starred.

You can understand both. On the one hand, actors and screenwriters can really become hostages of the notorious artificial intelligence penetrating into their industry like an octopus, leaving them without sufficient means of subsistence. On the other hand, the claims of the Producer Alliance are understandable. For films in production, the strike means that much of the work will become impossible. Even in cases where filming has already been completed, the actors will not be able to participate in reshoots and other important elements of the filmmaking process.

Television shows that are still filming must also largely be stopped, although additional agreements may be made between performers and producers in some cases to allow work to continue.

Top Hollywood stars will not be able to attend promotional events for new and upcoming releases. AMPTP said the strike was “definitely not the outcome we hoped for, as studios cannot function without the performers who bring our TV shows and movies to life.”

The protest involves tens of thousands of actors who are paid significantly less for minor roles than their counterparts on the top list. “In the old model, they got leftovers based on success. In the new model, they can’t find out what’s going on behind the scenes because the streamers don’t share information,” Hollywood Reporter Editor-in-Chief Kim Masters told the BBC.

Speaking at a gathering of industry leaders at an Idaho resort ahead of the strike on Thursday, Disney chief executive Bob Iger said the demands from both actors and writers were impractical and hurt an industry still recovering from the pandemic.

While Hollywood has been preparing for a writers’ strike since the beginning of the year, the New York Times notes, the actors’ uncharacteristic determination has taken senior executives and producers by surprise. The first distress signal for the studios came in early June, when about 65,000 members of the actors’ union voted to sanction the strike. However, the studio representatives entered into negotiations with optimism. However, they were stunned when they saw the list of proposals from the union – it was 48 pages long, almost three times the size of the list during their last negotiations in 2020.

Then, at the end of June, more than a thousand actors (including Meryl Streep, John Leguizamo, Jennifer Lawrence, Constance Wu, and Ben Stiller) signed a letter to the guild leadership, openly declaring that “we are ready to strike.”

Now Hollywood studios will have to fight a labor war on two fronts, with no up-to-date blueprint to familiarize themselves with. There are many open questions, including whether actors and writers can require that future negotiations with studios be conducted in tandem.

If the strikes drag on into the fall, blockbusters scheduled for next summer (such as Deadpool 3) could be delayed.