Will the Hollywood strike affect Johnny Depp and Russian cinema

160,000 members of the US Screen Actors Guild are on strike in Los Angeles. The strike of screenwriters, which began a month and a half ago, continues. Colleagues were supported by French filmmakers. Moscow did not stand aside, limiting itself, however, to “sofa judgments” during a thematic press conference on whether Keanu Reeves would remain without a profession.

Our speakers were much more interested in their own problems, up to the “blurred concept of “patriotic cinema”, than foreign troubles.

For example, actor Said Dashuk-Nigmatulin (he is the son of Talgat Nigmatulin, the star of the Soviet hit “Pirates of the 20th Century”) was offered by one of the platforms to make a film about a superhero, but that it should be a patriotic movie. The moderator constantly had to steer the conversation in the right direction: “Let’s get back to Hollywood.”

And there the strike makes itself felt. There are two union strikes in Hollywood that haven’t happened in 90 years. The production of many films has stopped. The largest American studios are forced to change the release schedule. For example, the release of Dune 2 by Denis Villeneuve, which was planned for November, is postponed indefinitely, and viewers will not see the film before 2024.

The losses are huge. The protesting actors are making demands on three points: low rates, health insurance (well, that’s understandable) and … the threat of artificial intelligence. It must be understood that creative people are afraid that AI as a screenwriter will cost producers less.

Major studios offered Hollywood actors more than $1 billion in compensation, but they failed to “buy” the Screen Actors Guild and the United States Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). The stakes are too high.

At a Moscow press conference on the topic “Full stop of the film industry. How will the actors’ strike affect Hollywood? speakers took part, whose names will not say anything to many viewers.

The picture looks, from their point of view, so. Hollywood has inflated budgets, one trailer can cost $160 million. Actors from the third and fourth echelons, who have the lowest rates, have taken to the streets. The conflict is long overdue, and the proposal to scan actors with a one-time fee and then use artificial intelligence to create the desired image only fueled old problems.

Here are the main thoughts voiced at a press conference in Moscow: this will not affect our industry. Russia and Hollywood are different planets, Earth and Pluto. We won’t have that. Our market is oversaturated. We have a different mentality. There will be no strike in Russia. If they call for it, they will be replaced by people who are ready to work for less money. Our trade unions are not as strong as in the USA. The departure of American film production from the Russian market is also a blow to Hollywood. They lost their income.

One of the participants in the discussion suggested that some American actors are paid a fee for participating in the strike. However, colleagues assured that this does not work in the USA, they are ideological there. Everything is fine with actors of the rank of Johnny Depp, and everything is spelled out in the contract to the smallest detail, up to a possible earthquake and strikes. But if his lesser-known colleagues took to the streets to fight for their rights, Depp will not be able to act either.

Actor and singer Alexei Losikhin believes that Americans will make a show out of any story, to which TV journalist David Shneiderov adds: “The weather is good there.”

“It has nothing to do with art,” says Losikhin. – It’s about bread. The Americans will deal with their problems, and even make a film about it with Tom Cruise in the title role.

And the Hollywood strike, according to Alexei, will give impetus to our cinema. In the meantime, we need to take the market, since Hollywood has given up. There are forces. For example, on the Web, he watches great films made by novice directors on their knees.

In general, a brilliantly staged show will end with negotiations, and nothing significant will happen in Russia. However, according to Said Dashuk-Nigmatulin, whatever the outcome of the strike in Hollywood, the reputational damage will exceed the gains of the strikers. Since a lot of money has been lost, the optimization process will begin, all “obsolete” employees will be fired, novice actors will be hired for modest money to replace the dissatisfied ones, and they will be made new stars.

The apocalyptic future looks like this from the point of view of Russian speakers. Artificial intelligence is coming. Theaters will soon use holograms of artists, but still the theater will survive. But feature films can go to another world. So far, the alignment is as follows: 30 percent falls on the share of artificial intelligence, 70 percent – on a live process.

In the short term, there will be two types of art – cheap from the neural network and expensive, which is still the theater. If American producers meet the actors, then strikes of make-up artists, costume designers, composers will follow …

Said Dashuk-Nigmatulin, who is currently working on a project about children, decided to save money and do without make-up artists. He believes that children do not need makeup, and with the help of artificial intelligence, you can make it no worse than a live make-up artist.

“I can voice everyone myself,” Said said. A neural network will always help. Costume designers, in his opinion, are also candidates for departure. All the same neural network will offer the best version of costumes in detail. And you don’t need a composer to write music. It is enough to write a request, sing something – and everything will be fine. Artificial intelligence will help. It will be interesting to see what kind of film he will shoot, armed with the latest opportunities. Talent in any business has not yet been canceled.

The participants walked through the Russian hits. “Challenge”, filmed in space, barely runs for more than three months at the box office, and here’s the result – it went to zero. The halls are empty. And from the computer graphics of “Cheburashka” Americans will faint. This is to the question of why Russian cinema, if it is not copyrighted, is of no interest to anyone in the USA and Europe.

Actor and head of the independent trade union of theater and film actors Denis Kiris sees the cause of all troubles in the absence of a state policy in the field of cinema. In his opinion, the funds allocated for film production at the state level are a drop in the ocean.