“[Kevin Klowden, chief global strategist at the Milken Institute] explained that the work stoppage will impact other businesses besides production, including restaurants, catering companies, trucking agencies, and dry cleaning businesses, among many others. ‘The main thing we’re really factoring into it is the lost wages,’ Klowden told Yahoo Finance Live”
Got to sow that discontent for the strikers among other workers. As if the Hollywood business execs give 2 shits.
Also checked up about this Milken Institute and of course it’s some scumbag think tank. The opening paragraph on their Wikipedia page is great and totally makes them seem like a reputable and unbiased source.
“The institute was founded in 1991 by Michael Milken, a former Drexel Burnham Lambert banker who gained notoriety for significant financial success as a pioneer of “junk bonds” as well as his subsequent felony conviction and prison sentence for U.S. securities law violations.”
“The institute was founded in 1991 by Michael Milken, a former Drexel Burnham Lambert banker who gained notoriety for significant financial success as a pioneer of “junk bonds” as well as his subsequent felony conviction and prison sentence for U.S. securities law violations.”
He’s seems like one of those shady ass business types that will run a company into the ground while trying to maximize his personal earnings before he skips town on a solid gold private jet.
Looking at the numbers given on Wikipedia is ludicrous.
“Milken’s compensation while head of the high-yield bond department at Drexel Burnham Lambert in the late 1980s exceeded $1 billion over a four-year period, a record for U.S. income at that time.”
That’s already nuts but then you look at the company’s financials and its even more insane.
Revenue: US$4.8 billion (1968)
Net Income: US$545.5 million (1968)
The guy was syphoning off a whole fifth of the company’s entire revenue for the last years of its existence before it went bankrupt.
You’re doing a terrible job on selling them as a grifter. They sound a lot like those 80s sociopathic investment bankers that buy companies and then gut the company and destroy lives to make more money.
At least a grifter has to work to get the grift going.
Wow, great job with the pro-company/anti-worker framing there Yahoo finance. This is the fault of greedy corporations, not workers demanding a fair share.
If they actually cared about the economy, then give the actors and writers what they want and the strike ends, and we can all get a move-on with things.
That’s the point of the strike, and the solution is right there in front of the studios.
The amount the studios are losing from the strike could have paid for the WGA/ SAG requests easily, which makes the studios holding out feel even more ridiculous; but I think it’s not about the money for them.
I think they want to send the message that they hold the power, not the workers, to disincentivize/demoralize future strikers. On top of that, I think they are salivating at the thought of never paying a “creative” again; and AI writers rooms and owning the likeness rights of every extra they ever use would certainly make it easy for them.
The studios are dreaming of the day they can ask a computer to generate Iron Man 7, and it’ll spit out the script, generate CGI acting (including a rubbery PS3 looking RDJ), and it won’t ever need to touch human hands.
The studios want to frame the strike about money (and that is certainly a big issue), but this could very well be a strike for the future of Hollywood’s “soul”; which is why I think the studio heads are willing to take such a bath to keep it going
The thing the studios don't seem to appreciate about this is that once they can have an AI generate Iron Man 7, so can any other schlub; you can say you want to watch a movie where Iron Man enters a mini-golf tournament with Genghis Khan and the 1927 New York Yankees and it'll make one for you.
There are 3 possible outcomes, basically:
AI is never more than a curiosity as far as movie making and this whole argument was pointless;
AI gets good enough to replace a lot of the capital-incentive grunt work of movie making, like VFX, but not high-level creative work like writing / directing / production design, so making AAA movies gets cheaper and the big studios lose power while indie studios gain more;
AI gets as good at making movies as humans are, in which case we don't need studios at all.
None of these are good for them; the status quo is actually the least bad outcome. The real game, I suspect, is that they hope that they can convince writers that AI is a big enough threat to a) make concessions in other areas to stop it and b) be grateful they're still employed at all; a world where AI actually replaces creative talent on films is a world where we don't need studios at all anymore.
a movie where Iron Man enters a mini-golf tournament with Genghis Khan and the 1927 New York Yankees
Don’t give them any ideas LOL.
Overall, I think you’re completely correct. So far consumer LLMs cannot come close to anything a human writer can create, but I’m concerned that Hollywood would gladly take the hit on quality to save on writers. I hope the strikes succeed in preventing AI from entering the writing and acting space, but hopefully they don’t need to make concessions to prevent it.
As an aside, if everyone could create their own movies with AI, I wonder if studios would simply become IP holding companies (more than they already are). Anyone could make Lethal Weapon 5, but only the studio with the likeness rights (and training data) of Rob McElhenney would be able to have it look like the original actors are present.
Incorrect. Hollywood bigwig blowhards who routinely cheat on their accounting and taxes like it’s breathing and treat the people who actually create the products like an underclass of garbage … that’s who cost the economy $5b.
“the economy” is just rich people. No one gives a fuck about “the economy”, we care about fair wages. Shut up you rich jerks and just pay people enough to fucking survive.
That’s why they ended pensions and have, and are continuing to push all retirement into Wallstreet. That way the average person is chained to “the economy”, because otherwise you’re completely correct.
Yes it is. What exactly is the strike costing the economy? Actors and writers opting to forego their own wages in the interest of the collectively not being robbed by the members of the 1% and the mega corporations they run are not stealing money from people. The only thing the strike is doing is lowering the profit margins and short term value of the companies that only got said value by hoarding the wealth generated from the IP and likenesses of the people on strike.
I would love to see an experiment where they gave a company a tax incentive if they issued special shares that can only be sold in a life changing emergency that required the funds, or if at least 9 months passes.
I am not sure if it would make a big difference, but I would be fascinated to see if it created any management changes.
Although what I would really love to see is a tax incentive who paid there workers supplementally in shares. Basically you get paid a percent based off what your salary would be, and there is always a minimum and even if revenues fall you still make that minimum. Employee shares would always get preferential voting rights and if the company makes certain metrics they are forced to pay a sizeable percent of the dividends as a bonus to employees. Yes it leans a bit towards socialism, but I think if even a lowely cashier knew that their impact to the company would be directly reflected in their check they would try harder. It’s a win/win for the company and employees, only Wallstreet loses something.
It is not the strikes that cost the US economy money, it is the greed of absurdly overpaid executives who want to wring every cent of profits out of workers.
Any chance a co-op studio could replace or compete with the big studios? I’m sure the biggest hurdle would be raising enough capital but it would be nice to see the actual actors and film crews taking ownership.
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