The week of July 9th- 15th 2023 will
go down in Hollywood history for two notable things-
1. First, Tom Cruise-the last true Hollywood movie star
released Mission Impossible 7 to $80 million dollars as the box office it’s
opening week. While $80 million is a
rather impressive number that’s still way under the$295 million it cost to make
and may join the list of bigtime summer blockbusters ("Indian Jones & the
Dial of Destiny", "The Little Mermaid" live action remake, "Elemental", "The Flash", "Ruby Gilman Teenage Kraken") that have tanked and/or been a disappointment at
the movie theaters in the summer of 2023.
2. Second, big time movie stars like Cruise joined the ranks of other unknown actors in the Screen Actors' Guild with their brethren in the Writers Guild of America by going on strike thereby shutting every type of scripted drama/comedy down even if a producer/director was lucky enough to get a script from a writer before that writer went on strike back in May. Last time both unions were on strike was when Ronald Regan was president of the Screen Actors’ Guild in 1960 and that may have been the only time Ronald Regan was in favor of a union.
When it comes to the Hollywood Strike I can understand both sides to a certain degree. I certainly have empathy for what the average Hollywood writer is going through. Vox[i] explained TV shows used to be a minimum of 24 shows a season with several writers crafting the plot, characters and dialogue. With an extended TV series run writers often had the ability to go on the set and learn other ropes about TV production. This in turn influenced how they wrote. For example, my dream job is to be a writer on my favorite biblical TV show “The Chosen”. I even took a step towards making that dream a reality by sending in what is called a spec (as in speculation of what I think was going to happen on “The Chosen” based upon reading the bible & following “The Chosen” plot lines) script to Dallas Jenkins. However, I sent it to the wrong mailing address. Even if I did send it the correct address to begin with Jenkins would have looked at my title page and thrown that script unread in the trash because he has publicly stated he doesn’t want to film that particular biblical scene my script was based around. Why? Because the Gospel story I wrote my “Chosen” script around would have cost a minimum of half a million dollars in special effects if you go with the Gospel story alone. Furthermore, my script probably doubled that SFX amount but in my defense of my script it isn’t my fault God decided to show off to Elijah in I Kings 20:9-13 before saying hello to him.
Back to my main point-once a TV
writer had experience learning what it costs to put on a show and how things
work in the Hollywood production world they eventually try to become their own
TV producer of their own TV shows. Now,
your average TV show is down to 8 episodes a season and you can binge watch
them all at once in an afternoon. This means that your modern TV producers/big
time studio streamers think writers can therefore write the entire series in an
afternoon as well and be satisfied with one paycheck. It’s no wonder some of these writers find
themselves on food stamps or taking odd jobs between writing gigs which in this
streaming era you think would be plentiful.
Both the writers and the actors are also fighting for bigger residuals which essentially is a royalty check for using their words, in the case of the writer, or performance in the case of the actor on screen. One YouTuber/actress named Makayla Lysiak showed her residual checks she received from a previous acting gig.[ii] Let’s just say the studios paid more in postage and she would spend more in gas to deposit those checks at the bank. Actors are also trying to go back to in person auditioning which also makes sense since actors are perpetually broke and it may come down to who has better video equipment instead of who gave a better audition. Not to mention in person auditioning gives actors a chance to network with casting agents/directors who may keep them in mind for future projects. Once again using an example from one of my favorite TV shows “The Chosen” is an actor named Noah James[iii] who portrays Saint Andrew. Now James initially auditioned to be the shepherd in “The Shepherd”. However, James lost the part to another actor. As soon as Jenkins crowdfunding money came through James again auditioned for “The Chosen” at first for the part of St. Peter but, well, when you’re competing against an actor born and raised in Capernaum, Israel, you’re probably not going to get that part. James then tried out for other roles and Jenkins liked him enough figure out which one of Jesus’ other eleven disciples James could portray eventually casting him as St. Andrew.
Both writers and actors of course are terrified of the Artificial Intelligence revolution that is taking over the world. In some ways artificial actors have been a thing since George Lucas created a crowd of CGI aliens in “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” and Jar Jar Binks. In the case of Jar Jar though Ahmed Best did provide the funky voice and wore a modified costume on the set so Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd and Ewan McGreggor could have sight lines when they had to interact with this as of yet unseen character. I’m not sure if the CGI actor technology has improved to the point where you have to use a Turing test for your average on-screen background actor, but that day is coming. Another YouTube video I saw from Adam Conover formerly of Tru TV’s “Adam Ruins Everything” had him complaining some Chat GPT program plagiarized [iv]his former Tru TV show when he asked for the robots to write a script. And it makes sense. Keep in mind the word robot has its roots in the Slavic word for worker or perhaps even slave and slaves are never free to think independently of the source material. As much as a robot takeover of the world has been the plot of many a Sci-Fi film, nowadays it may be a reality. The other day I walked into a McDonalds because I had some time to kill before I met my husband in Lemont. There was no cashier at the counter. Instead, I was greeted by a large screen where I could tap to order my food and I had to take a number to have someone bring me my food which was completely contrary to the McDonnald’s brothers’ original speedy service system. If I wanted to use a machine to order my food, I would have downloaded the McDonnald’s App on my smartphone and used it. I don’t want the McDonalds app to be on my phone because the last thing I need is some notification on my smartphone reminding me that a deliciously large 480 calorie, 23 fat g, 400 mg sodium laden French fry is only $1 if I order it on the McDonalds app. My medical bills will be far more than the sale McDonalds is offering me! I wanted to talk with a human cashier but for some reason that local Lemont McDonalds seemed to give me no choice. So, if a big-time corporation like McDonalds is using computers/robots to help with cheap food orders it wouldn’t surprise me that a Hollywood movie studio would try something like this to save money as well on something that cost a lot more money than $1 French Fry.
Which
brings me to the other half of this argument-The fact Hollywood movie/streaming
studios are indeed broke. Or are they?
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