On Strike!

[RedRosa]

Folks in the USA probably know that the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild are on strike. The SAG strike started 4 days ago. These are major strikes where I live (I have friends in the Industry.)

Well, here's the skinny for the kibitzers: the people on strike are seriously worried about AI stealing their intellectual property, something that the studio bosses like Bob Iger of Disney and Dave Zaslav who runs Warner-HBO-Discovery (named the most overpaid CEO in America last year!) have already been doing.

Iger is especially reprehensible. The Atlantic’s Xochitl Gonzalez has a very fine piece on how the studio suits screwed themselves and now want to scapegoat the creative talent and why guys like Iger and Zaslav are indeed scared shitless -- if not speechless:

"Hollywood’s CEOs are suffering. Not primarily from labor disputes or industry disruption or public-relations issues, but from vincible ignorance, which seems to be endemic in C-suites of all industries. Under pressure to deliver to Wall Street, too many CEOs have lost the plot of their own movie. They are not running companies to profitably deliver a good product, such as a book or a cup of coffee or, in this case, a movie or TV show. They are running companies to deliver good profit. The quality of their product has ceased to matter.

"If you doubt this, consider that when Emmy nominations were announced last week, the lions’ share went to HBO Max, a prestige platform that has ceased to exist by that name, because Warner Bros. Discovery took the streaming arm of the legacy brand and folded it into a messy app crowded with low-budget reality programs. We are in the upside-down."

Read the whole article here: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... gy/674730/

[Orla]

Here’s some information about the strike(s) I found to be informative.

[Silo]

It's interesting how a Black Mirror episode came to life right before our eyes. Hollywood execs are wanting to pay actors (extras, but who know, maybe more) to show up for one day and they'll user their digital likeness for..however long.

Now I'm not in the biz but I understand payment based on how often your appearance was aired used to be a thing. This translates to a steal for Hollywood execs: using an actor's likeness for whatever, and not having to pay extra for it.

Honesty, any sentiment of 'this industries CEOs are suffering' can listen to a tiny violin - no one cares.

I hope the actors and screenwriters guild bankrupt the CEOS. Y'all out there in expensive AF California living like kings - do not expect anyone to care about your "plight".

[RedRosa]

Iger has been arrogant enough to say recently that the actors and writers are “adding to a set of challenges that this business is already facing that is quite frankly very disruptive and dangerous.”

Disruptive? It was actors who insisted on streaming? Dangerous? WTF is Iger mumbling about? What…the WGA is now run by the Taliban?

Another studio exec pinhead was quoted last week saying management strategy to break the strike was eviction and, presumably, starvation. His suggestions was “to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.”

I have to say, even at my ripe old age and my current excessive level of cynicism, this stuff really makes my head swim.

[Silo]

Another studio exec pinhead was quoted last week saying management strategy to break the strike was eviction and, presumably, starvation. His suggestions was “to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.”

Oh, man - Ron Perlman's response to this particular execc's gem was amazing. It was basically like: "There's a lot of ways a person can lose their house, and we know who you are and where you live."