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Post by jdv on Jul 13, 2023 16:22:52 GMT -5
Hollywood - outside of movies with Tom Cruise and/or dinosaurs in them - has been putting out bomb after bomb.
So naturally what better way to kill an already iffy industry than to strike. The writers guild has already been on strike for 3 months (not that you've noticed), but the actors are set to strike too starting at midnight tonight.
If they do go on strike, it'll be the first time both unions staged a strike at the same time since 1960.
And the peril to the industry isn't idle words - some of biggest companies in the world have been bleeding money for years now as movies bomb, and on-line streaming services fail to break even.
Obviously, a strike of any length makes that even worse. Yet as normal Americans have seen their wealth slashed by record inflation and other massive price increases (I just paid $4 for 2 McDonalds hamburgers, a 100% in price from only 2 years ago), it's hard to feel too sorry for people who at the highest levels made millions.
It's not too hard to predict that people will ditch streaming services/basic cable in even greater numbers as new material dries up. Poor butterflies.
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Post by jdv on Jul 14, 2023 11:18:27 GMT -5
So the actors guild did indeed decide to go on strike, something that they may soon come to regret as producers are apparently willing to play hardball. From Deadline: "The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers [AMPTP] are planning to dig in hard this fall before even entertaining the idea of more talks with the WGA, I’ve learned. “Not Halloween precisely, but late October, for sure, is the intention,” says a top-tier producer close to the Carol Lombardini-run AMPTP… “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.” ------------------------------- But of course it isn't just the actors that will be looking at the mail box full of bills come October, it's the owners of streaming services too. As most (probably all) were already losing money, months of no new content won't help much. Other than the very few movie star left, and the stars of long established TV shows, producers will have no problem making movies with non-union actors because every non-union actor, DP and grip is already raring to go. Greed - it's a helluva drug. deadline.com/2023/07/writers-strike-hollywood-studios-deal-fight-wga-actors-1235434335/ |
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Post by Warpig on Jul 15, 2023 8:29:05 GMT -5
Wait until the first actor is displaced by an AI version of Humphrey Bogart.
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Post by jdv on Jul 15, 2023 13:46:38 GMT -5
One of the points that producers won't budge on is paying extras the re-use of footage shot for big crowd scenes.
In other words, the screen actors guild wants producers/streaming outlets/TV stations to pay residues every time footage of an extra shot for such scenes is re-used (easy to do b/c they're typically shot on green screen, then punched in later).
It's a ludicrous notion on its face; perhaps the easiest thing a producer to get around unions simply hiring by people off of the street (which is essentially what's done with extras anyway).
Somehow I doubt name actors are going to die on that hill.
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Post by jdv on Jul 25, 2023 13:05:32 GMT -5
So an interesting theory has been put forward as to why the giant streaming services like Netflix will never budge on residuals for actors is that to pay residuals, they'd have to be based on actual views or showings.
And in doing so, the companies would have to publicly reveal how many viewers there are - something that can't do if ratings are low.
That's because much of the current value of said companies stock is based on the idea that while all of these companies are losing money (and literally all of them are), it's only because they are trying to gather more market share. Eventually, the theory goes, these streamers will get so many subscribers and viewers that the losses will be worth it in the end.
But if that's not true, if viewership has clearly peaked or is past-peak, then these companies aren't losing money to garner market share, they're just losing money. If true, all speculative value goes right out the window.
That's because tech companies have been valuated not upon their present market value but for their potential future value. Which isn't much if these companies are already at max expected subscribers/viewers.
So if the actors have decided that revealing the actual viewership numbers is the hill they're going to die on, then they'll die there b/c there is ZERO chance that these streamers will publicly announce their numbers.
Ironically, if the above theory is true, it's not paying the actors more that worries them so much but rather that revealing the low ratings would sink their stock price.
I suspect that the actors & writers are going to very quickly realize that the CEOs are far more willing to wait it out than they are.
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Post by jdv on Aug 4, 2023 12:40:57 GMT -5
Another week w/o a resolution and there's no sign it will end any time soon.
But most Americans don't care either way according to a new poll. That may change as they realize their anticipated fall shows aren't showing new episodes, but for now no one seems to care very much out side of Hollywood.
Which I suppose doesn't mean much one way or the other in terms of the two parties actually trying to get changes to the contracts, but it does mean that there's no outside pressure or support of one side or the other.
No wave of public sentiment for either side is perhaps the surest sign yet that a lot of people simply do not care about the "stars" or their products.
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Post by jdv on Aug 10, 2023 15:09:10 GMT -5
The writers have now been on strike for 100 days with no signs that production companies will cave anytime soon.
There is a legit chance that those companies simply hire either non-union writers and/or AI writers.
Studios do not have to hire union-based talent (and yes, I am using that word loosely), or indeed have to produce narrative content at all. That's something that I think is only now occurring to those on strike.
All of the major players have suffered enormous losses with their streaming services and many - like Disney - have seen box office bomb after bomb as well. Ad rates are way down for TV (something that would normally buoy these companies) as Americans continue to cut the cord in record numbers.
In other words, the studios are already fucked, so why not get more fucked? The heads of studios will never submit to an accounting of views on-line as that would likely be the final straw for investors, who have been told ad-nauseum that losses now will equal big profit down the line.
The writers will be skeletons in cardboard coffins before the heads of studios knuckle under. So no fall TV shows (which would normally debut in a month), and no more studio movies for perhaps a very long time to come.
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Post by Warpig on Aug 10, 2023 18:11:33 GMT -5
Oh no, I'll have to go back to my habit of watching only older films because they were better!
What a tragedy!
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Post by jdv on Aug 11, 2023 10:44:12 GMT -5
I watch more OTA TV then you do, but yeah - given the output from Hollywood in general, no one in the general public will shed too many tears....
Which is something I think the production companies are well aware of.
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Post by jdv on Oct 12, 2023 12:56:52 GMT -5
3 months later, and the actors are still on strike, with no indication that they'll stop any time soon.
Talks broke down yesterday when SAG/AFTRA let the bargaining table claiming the current offer from movie studios is even worse then the initial one 3 months ago.
As I've detailed previously, these studios will never agree to an exact, public, accounting of their streaming viewerships and even more certainly will not agree to in perpetuity residuals for shows, nor actors used for digital assets.
Perhaps the biggest issue of all - CG actors - is another one studios won't buckle on as they don't dare. CG - like AI - is a genie let out of the bottle, and it won't be put back in easily.
Oddly enough, writers have returned to work choosing not to remain on strike until the actors also get a deal... which will probably not go over to well down the line.
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Post by Warpig on Oct 12, 2023 16:04:37 GMT -5
Psht, fuck em.
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