No scripts and maybe no actors: a disastrous scenario for Hollywood. After the writers, who have been on strike for ten weeks, movie stars are now threatening to go on strike. They demand higher wages and certainty about the use of artificial intelligence.
Hollywood productions have been at a standstill for months now, because writers do not produce scripts. And the end of the writers’ strike, which started on May 2, is still not in sight.
New seasons of successful series like The Last of Us, Stranger Things, The Handmaid’s Tale and the Game of Thrones-spin-off A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight have already been postponed.
Now also well-known actors such as Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Ben Stiller and Rami Malek follow. Two weeks ago they announced they were considering a strike. If they do, they will not participate in new and completed projects. So also not interviews or red carpet events.
It would be the first time in more than sixty years that Hollywood writers and actors went on strike at the same time. For the film industry, which was just getting going again after the corona pandemic, that would mean almost a complete standstill. In short, a disastrous scenario for Hollywood.
In the movie Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, a young Harrison Ford can be seen thanks to the so-called de-aging technique.
What if AI could replace actors?
Actors’ incomes must increase, says SAG-AFTRA. The union represents about 160,000 members, including actors. Wednesday is the last day that negotiations will take place with film studios, production companies and streaming services.
According to the union, the fact that the wages are too low is mainly due to streaming services. The budget of productions has increased in recent years, but the share that the actors receive has not increased.
Previously, both actors and writers could earn well from royalties. These days, actors earn much less from reps on streaming services.
Pay isn’t the only thing actors aren’t happy about. They also fear the rise of artificial intelligence or AI. What if he can replace the actors? And what if an actor’s face or voice is used without their own cooperation?
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, director and chief negotiator of SAG-AFTRA, said actors have a right to know what projects they are working on, what part they are playing and what words they are saying. “Our members are human beings, not puppets. Therefore, you are not allowed to use AI technology to make them do or say anything without their consent.”
0:25 Play button
Hollywood productions already use AI
Movie stars like Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves can already be seen in highly realistic, but AI-made videos. We see these so-called deepfakes popping up more and more. Reeves finds the development “frustrating,” he says Wired. “If you play in a film, you know that the images are edited. But you participate in that yourself. In deepfakeland you have nothing to say and that is scary.”
But Hollywood productions are also already using AI. So are in the series The Mandalorian and in the last Indiana Jonesmovie actors Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford made younger with the so-called deaging-technology.
Dutch actors do not have to fear this (yet), says director Bobby Boermans to NU.nl. “In America they are standard fifteen years ahead of the film industry. That has to do with the budgets they have there,” says the director of The golden hour in New neighbours. “You can see that careful tests are being done with AI, but there are no major projects in the Netherlands yet.”
Opportunities with AI, but there is also danger
Boermans certainly sees opportunities in the field of AI, although he also understands Reeves. “In the field of visual effects and AI can certainly help in the editing of a film,” says the director. “But there is danger in deepfakes and voice distortion.”
Director Joe Russo, known for the Marvel movies Infinity War in Endgame, expects films to be made using AI within two years. Russo sees opportunities for the future, he says Collider. For example, deceased actors such as Marilyn Monroe or Humphrey Bogart can be brought to life thanks to AI.
The American actors hope that the negotiations will provide assurance that AI will not be used to make them redundant. Boermans thinks it will not go that fast. “Real emotion cannot be imitated.”
2023-07-12 03:13:00
#Hollywood #actors #afraid #superfluous #due #artificial #intelligence #Movies #Series
