What if the Writer’s Strike Fails?
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- čas přidán 25. 07. 2023
- How much leverage do the actors and writers actually have in the current strike against the major Hollywood studios?
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If Disney wanted to make money on major releases, they could actually try to make good movies and not uninspired hot garbage
I think that's the equivalent of asking a homeless person to get a house
@@neociber24 yes, asking multi BILLION corporation to actually give a good product instead of garbage is the equivalent of asking a person with 0 resources to get a house out of thin air
Good comparison
@@inigo137the joke is that they have zero talent within the company and their networks that reach outside the company also can't pull in any talent.
If quality guaranteed success the live action disney remakes from 2016 to 2019 wouldn't of made the billions they did make
@@krizalllidthere is talent though but Disney would rather work on risk averse projects. It's why they're shitting out so much marvel, star wars and those live action remakes because they see them as safe bets regardless of quality
If the current situation of television and streaming is not feasible, then this kind of reckoning was always inevitable. I'm honestly surprised a second writer's strike happened before the special effect/animators grouped up to demand better working conditions
If Oppenheimer, Barbie, and Sound of Freedom are good I will change my mind. But overall plots and character development have been lacking in movies. I say, give AI a chance.
@@geebsterman2881the "A.I." will output a generic script that a human will have to massively rewrite and more than likely that human will be an underpaid inexperienced rushed writer that will fail to deliver on good plots or character development. The only difference is now the person responsible will have fewer protections and be paid even less.
@tybkc idk, I read a short story made by AI that had a story of Trump, Biden, and Obama teaming up to save the world from a zombie invasion. It reminded me of CODs nazi zombies, and they had more character development than most DC and Marvel superheroes. You're probably right, but we won't know until we try.
@@geebsterman2881The AI learnt how to write screenplays from current Hollywood writers though, it'll just be a worse version of the same stuff. Plus Hollywood doesn't want to completely replace their writers, they want to generate scripts from the AI and have senior writers turn those scripts into actual final versions. One of the points being made by the writers here is that they won't be able to train up new writers if all of the junior writing roles are replaced by AI, which is an important point for the overall sustainability of the industry, not just writers' pay. The same thing is happening with programming - you need those entry level roles, otherwise new blood can't enter the industry and in 30 years when everyone else retires you've now got no trained employees and need to restart the entire industry from scratch.
@@geebsterman2881 Give AI a chance. Join the Borg. We've already ExPlOrEd that frontier if you get the pun. Decades and decades of robot and AI related movies. Give it a chance? Let the studios have what you want and they will churn out WORSE shate than the boring infinite, infinite war super hero movie syndication into ad nauseam.
SAG has given permission for actors to work with A24, as they have agreed to the unions conditions.
If a small indie studio can afford to meet their demands, why can't Disney, Amazon or Netflix?
Probably because all the streaming services make little to no profit. And that's exactly what no one should see, otherwise the bubble will burst.
Probably because small studios have smaller budgets and fewer writers and actors
It's not about the money. It's about control
I do not think A24 has agreed to new terms yet. They are just not part of AMPTP and never have been. That is the main reason as A24 never tried to get on the same bad deal as the other big media companies.
@@darkwowpgNetflix made $1.5 billion profit in Q1 2023. They seem to be doing fine.
The cast of the original Trek had to sue for payment because Paramount claimed Star Trek didn't make money.
David Ducovny had to sue Fox after they claimed they didn't need to pay residuals on "The X-files" because the sweetheart deal with FX was still "Fox."
To this day Fox (now Disney) claims that "The Empire Strikes Back" has never made a dime.
When Disney bought out Lucasfilm they stopped paying royalties to writers. Alan Dean Foster, the OG Star Wars spin off writer and author of the original novelization is elderly and relies on royalties from his work. They had to be shamed and lawyered into not being fraudulent assholes.
Disney makes $200m/season shows for D+ and then wonders why D+ doesn't make money. The problem ain't the talent. It's the laughably unrealistic expectations of studio biz bros.
Hulu printed money. Because fiscal restraint and competent leadership. Then Disney bought out the majority and are in the process ruining what made it great. TWDC is so laughably top-heavy with over compensated VPs it's bonkers and they're all so far up their own assholes it's comical.
The D&D movie cost $150m and made a bit over $200m. That is a "failure."
The studios are run by garbage people.
That 150m cost is that with marketing etc? Cuz if that's only production cost than that 50 million "profit" isn't gonna cut it.
Aw come on, thats an insult to all garbage people…
Man . . . That DnD movie was so fun. . . .
@@jesselioce
Nah, that's not even the half of it. The 200 is roughly split by the cinemas and studio for the most part. So, in reality, they are closer to 50 in the hole, and nope, this does not take into account marketing. A film's marketing budget is frequently somewhere in the ballpark of 40-80% of the production budget. For ease of figures, I will hypothetically pick D&D at 50%. 150 production + 75 marketing is 225, which makes that 100 share of the revenue an utter joke.
There are two films that actually perfectly illustrate how Hollywood gets in it's own way sometimes. Ghostbusters (2016) and Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) are interestingly paralleled. Both brought in roughly $45 million in their opening weekend, one was 44 and the other was 46. At the end of the theatrical runs; one had earnings of $204 million and the other $229 million. This tells me that Ghostbusters actually has a fairly consistent and reliable audience on the surface, but only one actually made money because its budget was around half of the other one. It was Ghostbusters: Afterlife, but it did not profit solely due to the theatrical run. It's budget was $75 million, and if one assumes that the marketing budget was half, which is believable enough, this is $113 million, which is not half of $204 million. That leaves a discrepancy of 11 million. Because of the success, this gave the studio a bump for negotiating video distribution deals. More uniquely to Ghostbusters, there are lucrative merchandising royalties to pad studio earnings. These are why the studio was so gung-ho to greenlight the sequel. The primary reasons why Ghostbusters: Afterlife was in an uphill battle to succeed have disappeared with the sequel. There is no disappointing previous film nor pandemic to contend with, and they now have a familiar storyline to build upon and market with.
Ghostbusters 2016 cost $144 million and was too expensive to ever hope to make money from. People can suggest that there were story and casting issues, but whilst they may have a point with underlying issues, the root cause is that they fundamentally spent way too much money.
This is what makes Tom Cruise a phenomenal producer. He can sell himself but may not be able to sell a different concept with him in it. When he first went in to make Jack Reacher, he didn't budget it like an existing Tom Cruise led series and deliberately kept the budget as low as possible to achieve the quality expected from a Tom Cruise project but low enough to at least break even and not lose investor money.
Hollywood accounting is just as absurd as Washingtonian, and in fact, Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary was a Hollywood banker.
As a huge fan of the star wars books pre buyout, and a decent human being, the fact they tried to skimp on paying writers their royalties makes me so mad
What's funny with big corporations is that your salary is proportional to their revenue only when they fail. Surprisingly you don't get anything more when it's an overwhelming succes
Mhm, have you lived in this reality or what? 😂
ceo get hundred million bonus during bad and good years yet employees continue to see wages decrease and work increase. Why does the execs get hundred million bonus especially during years their workers are getting laid off.
2:40 The reason all their big bets are failing is because they only made a few of them, but went all in on each. Making more medium-budget movies which, while they wouldn't have grossed as much, also wouldn't have cost nearly as much, would have greatly increased their hit rate. Especially if they allowed medium-budget films that were better targeted at nicher markets rather than having to make your few big budgets as bland as possible to appeal to everybody. Add to that not keeping on writers past the initial pre-production and the big movie studios shot themselves in the foot on this one by looking at movies and TV as dollar signs instead of art
Marketing costs are the reason.
@@phelan8385I mean maybe they aren’t very good at marketing? The Barbie and Oppenheimer teams seem to have done a good job, but I didn’t even know the new mission impossible was out until it showed up below Oppenheimer on the movie theatre website
I agree with the OP. I miss comedies and romcoms. Movie night used to be a regular thing. Now it's once every few years at best. I cannot stand to watch another super hero movie or watch hero's from classic movies sacrificed at the altar of the new "generation" reboot.
Start some new franchises. Hollywood cannot have lost all its creativity.
@@shaydzaHollywood has creativity, the executives just refuse to let that through because creativity is risky - it's possible that people don't like the result. It hasn't occurred to them yet that if they're making a loss then they've got nothing to lose, or that the benefits will outweigh the risks in aggregate if they make more then 2 movies
@@coleeto2 I was shown MI impossible trailers on youtube. For a showcase shot (hero stuck at the top of a mountain) they kind of fudged the motorcycle physics. It was like a kid playing with a toy motorcycle.
here's the thing tho: if the studios don't budge, the writers and actors will simply keep their first and second jobs, because save for extreme exceptions they haven't been paying them enough to be their only job anyway!!
Exactly! It is simply not worth it to work in the industry if the people who actually write the stuff can't make a living, there is no point in working
Then they develop and AI that uses existing material to learn the mostly formulaic scripting that some "independent" writer polishes off. And they introduce a bunch of new actors and actresses to the industry to star in their shows. Ones that have already sold the rights to their likeness and voice so that shows can start them without them being present.
It's heartbreaking but there have been very few record breaking or must watch shows for years. Most are just another take on an existing show, or loaded with political rhetoric that alienates a sizable percentage of the population and make she show unwatchable outside the US.
The movie and TV industry really is in a dark place...
@@shaydza there have been precisely as many breakout shows in the past years as in any other period since, hmm, lost, or sopranos, or the wire. for that to not be the case would be a statistic aberration, considering how many of them have been launched in the industry's scramble during the past years. if you're not paying attention, or if your parameters are so out of whack to think that people don't like political writing (which encompasses literally all writing ever produced), that's a you issue. if you think you could live out your days with AI productions based on human output up to the year 2022, you're free to choose that i guess, but I honestly pity you. A24 is still producing their great stuff because they've agreed to every point on the SAG and WGA demands. disney and warner have no excuses. I'll go ahead and stick to that stuff. you know, the human produced stuff. the one that allows for a human connection.
I agree that the industry is in a dark place, but that's not because of the writers or actors, that's because the bigwig execs have become cowards who only agree to bet on what they think is safe and refuse to learn from their mistakes, and because they based their business model on the tech's industry pie in the sky idea of eternal growth. there's plenty of creativity clamoring for attention but being suppressed in the name of remaking Nostalgic 80s Franchise for the seventh time.
@@b1g_m00nI am not American. The societal politics of the US have always been a small factor in the shows but have gotten more so over time. Perhaps it's just not visible to those experiencing the change from the inside. Don't underestimate the earning of the studios from outside the US, they are not a minor factor in overall profitability, especially block busters.
My argument for AI was that all shows iterative and formulaic and seems more so now than in the past. Perhaps studios are less willing to take risks. If nobody is willing to break formulas then AI can combine current social media, political media and prior successful formulas to create iterative content. The mass production content could be produced with little human intervention, relatively speaking.
There will always be a place for "organic" content but will probably live in the indie movie world. While the rest of us have to endure the little mermaid v45 and law and order animal hospital edition 3.
@@b1g_m00nWriters go creatively bankrupt then blame the ‘bigwigs’. But they sure were happy to follow orders when the bigwigs were signing those checks!
And there’s a difference between art having a message and a TV show as a victim puke of Corpo-approved talking points. Media has been garbage and getting worse
CW is owned by Warner Brothers. Them pulling out of Vancouver is more related to the cost cutting they had to do as part of their horrible Discovery merger and rebranding. It's not specifically because sales are down.
CW while it is no longer owned by WBD since they were bought out by someone who wants to have that station be more focused on reality tv and sports it wouldn't surprise me if it's new owners are influenced by Zaslav in some shape or form
@@SetoShadowVTyep another fucking SyFi channel transition!
@@SetoShadowVT
The CW is currently going through a transitional phase and no longer wants to be known as the niche cut rate teen angst broadcast channel. It's got LIV Golf and is getting second fiddle NASCAR soon. The one thing that will save The CW is the impending demise of cable, unintentionally sped up by these strikes. I kind of expect that the mouthful and gimmicky *The CW* branding will be dropped closer to the point where they pull it all together. UPN was a much better moniker.
The thing that this strike may do is to diversify production and move some back to Vancouver. It would not be super hard for the new owners to cut SAG and WGA out by simply not hiring personnel from either. Canada, of course, has its own unions and rules to contend with inevitable strikes and shutdowns. The whole point of shooting in Vancouver is because it was cheap in the 80s-00s, and this is no longer the case, and several US states have given direct locale competition and incentives to productions. This is why The CW packed up and went down to Georgia for the most part. Pinewood, Tyler Perry and Disney all have state of the art and fantastic studios over there for the time being.
The 2007-2008 writers strike was very prolonged and led to the boom of reality television that resulted in cheap unscripted television to be mass produced leading to an oversaturation of the market and took a long time before scripted content returned to the screen.
While Streaming "Plus" services have made great gains in recent years especially over the pandemic with scripted content, award winning and profitable franchises.
The question is this time, will a prolong writers strike this time around result in a resurgence of reality television again or see a boom elsewhere. I see this time digital entertainment on other platforms that have matured more in the last 15 years being the biggest risk here. Could Hollywood be risking their streaming "plus" services to Tik Tok, Twitch and CZcamsr content creators?
Optimistically I'm pulling for an indie film boom.
Not TikTok, but at risk from AI.. AI could probably do better than the crap that has been coming out lately.
Another tale of Old Media failing to adapt. Hollywood is garbage and probably full of pedophiles, I'm more than willing to see it all come crashing down around them. AI produced work would be just as soulless and profit centered
It won't do JACKSH*T because Gaming, CZcams, Twitch, TikTok, Social Media and a multitude of other absolutely titanic outlets of entertainment or past time like Anime/ Pirated Anime are a million times bigger than they used to be in 2007-08, their strike is going to fail miserably because Hollywood today is far from the entertainment monolith that it once was.
@@connorpeppermint8635 Ironically, one of the few studios able to work in the strike is A24. The unions explicitly gave them an exemption because they actually agreed to the terms of the unions and they're one of the more valuable new studios that came into popularity by taking risk on more indie projects.
There's something so cathartic about these giant companies finally seeing some consequences for their actions.
/inevitably causing such consequences because of what they are
Are they though? The companies can do this for a long time, and they are already finding ways to move on without these people. They can hire a whole new industry if the writers and actors don't bend a knee. They have no leverage against the companies because their funds will run out far before the studios will.
Me over here in a corner watching anime. "Who's on strike?"
Man talk about an industry that should strike hardcore, the Anime and Mangaka industry is hugly exploitative.
@@aureateseigneur5317 You can tell it's bad when the characters in your anime start the series dying from overwork. It's an obvious cry for help.
@winkletter Half these shows start with someone getting hit by a truck and going to a fantasy land, it's well beyond a cry for help.
If Hollywood died in 2023, what would we lose from that, honestly? As many a fan project has proven, you are capable of producing a movie by sheer force of will alone these days that rivals a 90s blockbuster production.
The vacuum Hollywood would leave behind would open the way for many young studios that actually still had any passion left.
If we lose Hollywood, we'll lose opportunities for movies like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny... I lack the vocabulary to form a sentence that would convey just how little I'd care.
Back in the 2000s some PC gamers started to get worried because many console games were not getting PC releases, and PC releases slowed down a bit. In this vacuum of a market filled with enthusiasts but nothing to consume, indie developers started to take off. Now indie devs hold significant market share and they are likely to maintain that hold as long as they keep putting out bangers and niche stuff alike. Remember: AAA isn't a marker of quality but rather an indicator of the amount of apologies you will receive after buying their next broken mess.
This is the most likely thing to happen. The studios and writers are in a significant stake mate right now that neither wants to back down on( really only the studios can back down since the writers need the money). But Hollywood has to dissolve.
Hollywood would just be bailed out by the California government as if it does go under California would lose a significant portion of their revenue because most likely alot of actors would leave and with them large amounts of businesses owned by Hollywood and said actors. Not even counting the lost revenue from writers.
it's been a very long time since i've seen anything entertaining come from hollywood, and i have no sympathy for sag. the world would be better off without them. maybe people would grow once they stop drooling in front of brain dead shows and movies. independent creators need places to thrive without being stifled by corpo ad chasing algorithms squashing creativity.
@@FlakAttack0 the problem back then was physical releases can be a pain in the ass. once steam came around, way more pc games started getting released
I know it's not that simple but the only way out I see is for the writers and actors to just cut off these big companies and start producing small scale indie content. Else it's inevitable that the companies will win in a war of attrition as they have more spare money to survive.
They would have been more successful if they used their war chests to bank roll some indie films instead of trying to wait out the big production houses.
A24 already agreed to the SAG-AFTRA terms. Seems to me like the studios suck at business more than anything
@@macattack5863 I understand where you are coming from but the entire demands for writers could be satisfied with a mere $68 million dollars for a year. That is the budget of a mid sized movie. While they have a strike fund it is nowhere near enough to go toe to toe with multi-billion dollar per year revenue studios
@@unnecopprodoubly so now that they continue to get revenue from streaming while pausing new content
This is kinda what has been happening to the gaming industry
I'm guessing that a lot of them are getting temporary jobs while the studios are waiting the strike out. Obviously they'd rather be making movies or TV, but it's better than going homeless.
id bet a lot of them already had 2nd or 3rd jobs considering the pay they've been getting
The job market is terrible right now
Can you even afford living in LA at 40-60 Grand an year?
@@thrace_bot1012 How about 29K which is the minimum for health insurance which many do not now reach due to streaming business model changes.
A lot of writers and actors have second jobs already so they have their basic needs met
I think you'll start to see some indie projects get a real boon to their casting and being able to get writers. I think at least 50% streaming services need to go away and just license out their content.
LOL good luck telling 50% of billion dollar media companies to roll over and die. Too big to fail is the massive problem.
Look at fan projects like Astartes or Remember (Sodaz). The tools individual passionate creators have nowadays are insane. We're seeing this in both game and film.
yep streaming is overloaded and bleeding money. you are going to see alot close soon.
@@JC-Alanastartes isn't really a good comparison, they are 5 minute videos with minimal if any voice acting at all and it's made by a single really good independent animator/story writer,
And they also take ages to release
Completely different from teams of writers and animators that work on other bigger projects
@@Alucard-gt1zf
At the same time, those solo creators aren't keen on releasing a patch job.
Just to correct Linus here, there are quite a few productions who can go ahead with writers and actors on board. Their producers have agreed to the union terms for the current productions and have agreed to follow whatever the end deal will be. That proofs it’s both possible and viable.
if anything this gives independent studios a fair shake at making a good movie.
The underwear part sounds like Spongebob, where Spongebob wears pink underwear and then Patrick wears yellow ones. Finally Patrick adds at the end that the underwear was white when it was bought.
For the writers strike it's simply a case of more supply than demand and too many cooks in the kitchen. Especially when you're demanding multiple unnecessary writers to meet DEI or Bechdel stuff which does not return anywhere near the amount of money than it's worth investing in. It's also become very clear that a lot of writers only care about their own personal ideologies and politics than they care about the content they're creating, it's more egregious when they're working on a pre-existing IP instead of something original. The activist writers cause way more problems than they solve. General audiences want to watch a movie to experience a story, not to be lectured or preached, any writer that does not understand that needs to find a new career path because your chances of success are now very slim.
Even though A LOT OF movies in the 70s and 90s were also pretty preachy and political, but people loved those decades for movies. Politics aren’t the problem, poorly conveying the politics is the real culprit.
I always forget how big a part Vancouver plays in American TV.
A bunch of big actors are donating to the writers fund, like the Rock just gave an eff load of money, and the studios are in a really bad place financially, worse than most know about. Plus Barbie and Oppenheimer are proving folks want stuff other than the usual fare, and Barbie was pretty cheap to produce. Not saying you're wrong to worry about how much leverage they have but I've followed this fairly closely and I think the public support is the icing on the cake, nobody gives two craps about the rich right now.
nah hes wrong dont sugarcoat it
the studios put themselves there. with agenda filled movies nobody was going to see people had enough of those. then the writers and actors want more money when all those movies fail to make any money. so i dont feel sorry for any of them.
Barbie and Oppenheimer were cheaper than usual but 150-200M is still a ton of money to make entertainment. If it doesn't make 400M it's not very profitable as movies need to at least double their costs to be worth it.
@@HH-le1vi barbie and Oppenheimer are doing very well last i checked there at 470m golably and its only its first week. just proves again people want movies without hollywoke agendas.
you contradict yourself. Studios are in bad place financially so that makes them not to agree to writers demands. Do you realize that?
Well, to be frank, I don't see what either the SAG or WGA have to lose? Their asks are very reasonable and small, the counterproposal from the studios is absurd and essentially makes both writing and acting an expensive hobby that someone else profits off. It seems they have nothing to lose and the big studios are betting on the behemoths that are IP franchises to let them weather it. If anyone is overplaying their hand it is the big studios. They are not the only game in town.
I don t understand how writers work on Hollywood. Movies pay billions of dollars for CGI and advertising. But usually the plot feels like it wasn't even double checked, like they were written in an afternoon, I dont know how budget is managed but it is clear how little attention they pay to the writing.
Most of this is due to studio interference that make them add certain things to the story even if management knows fuck-all about writing.
Movie don't pay that much, actually. CGI costs a lot, but CGI firms are also struggling heavily (and historically have done so as well). Marketing is better off, but not by much. Big name actors get paid, but even Disney isn't scared to shaft them when they feel like it, see Scarlet Fucking J. The real money is in the licensing. Whoever owns the license gets the money. The reason Disney can pump out shitty movie after shitty movie isn't an endless stream of money, but because every Avengers Hasbro toy sold is basically free money they pocket.
A lot of people misunderstand last year when Hasbro said they needed to monetize D&D thinking they were trying to sell something, when what they meant was that they weren't LICENSING enough.
The Barbie movie could be a total flop, but even without a single ticket sold it was a major success for Mattel thanks to all the licensing done and the boost in doll sales.
It's why, for example, despite Star Wars 7, 8 and 9 being complete disasters, Disney still shills the new movies like they live in some alternate reality where anyone actually cares.
I think you forget how massive these productions are. Nobody wants to create bad movie. Its just insanely hard to keep track of everybody´s input, there are teams of writers, teams of production people, camera people, etc. Thats why great director is worth more than anyone working on the movie. He keeps track of everybody while fighting studio. One thing fails and you have to create scene around it which can ruin movie.
For example: Production set couldnt produce asteroid set, so writers have to rewrite the scene, they forget one thing, it suddenly does feel natural and you dont know it until you start editing the movie so you have to rewrite and do reshoots. Now studio wants something added so you go back and so on and so on. Go watch The Death of "Superman Lives": What Happened? documentary. One producers tasked writers to have Superman fight giant spider, the movie never got made but he managed to get giant spider in a movie, it was called Wild Wild West.
It seems ridiculous to pretend like producing in "expensive regions" isn't viabel anymore when you look at the way the money is actually allocated. These companies just squeeze every single drop of monetary value out of everyone they can exploit and pretend that they're not doing exactly that.
Time to outsource the least useful job. C suite exec.
The influencer guidelines came out right before San Diego Comic con and caused a ton of confusion with us cosplayers down here for like a day, because it sounded like it was against promoting any movies especially upcoming ones or doing anything studios could use for free promotional materials. There are a ton of cosplayers between here and LA who are also super minor actors and even if they're not SAG it's a warning not to help out studios who've had to cancel promos by cosplaying and promoting their work if the influencers/cosplayers ever want to join SAG.
Big companies can afford to explore alternatives to the Guild. Any time you make the ultimatum "Meet my demands or I quit", you need to be prepared for the answer being "Okay, goodbye". And big companies that can afford to eat losses for years *without* losing their homes and jobs see this as a short term pain/long term gain situation.
Actually due the fundamental principles of modern capitalism. They really can't. Sure they can tank quarterly profits but at the end of the year they are ultimately have to explain to the share holders why they didn't increase profits.
Infact the big corporations are on a tighter leash than the writers. Since we'll their is only so much to do to make more money.
@@BaconDragon-yr5vf They already have to explain to the shareholder why all that money they put into those writters turn into hot garbage. The movies industries will be more profitable without those writters
LMFAO you know how many people are in SAG? sure they can go forward with no recognizable faces, im sure they'd love to take that risk
Especially when making new movies makes them lose even more money 😂
IIRC, there are actually TWO completed Scooby-Doo movies that have not been released. The lower-budget 2D-animated movie got leaked, but the theatrical-budget CGI movie has not. Both were supposedly very good though
Edit: the one that got leaked is a SuperMan crossover. The CGI one is a sequel to Scoob
The Krypto crossover movie is super good, I might add.
It is more a spin off than a sequel because it involved the young age version of the characters you see at the beginning of Scoob.
I’m of the opinion that the people on strike would be better at making indie projects than the studio execs would be at acting in/writing their own studio films.
Almost nobody watches indie movies, they don't have the budget to succeed the same way.
I don't care about the movie industry, they can go bankrupt for all I care. If they didn't make propaganda movies noone wants to see, they might make money, but since they don't care to do so, the issues they have, are home-made.
I quit Disney+ and apart of Amazon Prime for delivery, I don't have any active video service, that I'd want. I don't care about movies past 2019 honestly.
Once companies start making movies I want to watch, I will watch them. And if Disney etc. doesn't want to make them, someone else will, because there's money to earn.
Looks like you need to realize there’s more to cinema than Disney movies
The Walt Disney Company made $3.2bn in profit last year, up from $2bn the year before. It is strange how every single movie ever made apparently loses them money, yet the companies behind them still manage to make large profits.
Disney is far bigger than just the tiny US movie studio. They make their money with real estate, hotels, travel agencies, toys and merchandise, books, music, worldwide tv stations, world wide sports teams and leagues, licensing and other stuff. The writer's and actor's strike will most likely end up like the 1998/99 NBA Lockout: In a desaster.
@@superhaviyou're forgetting their parks and criuse lines here.
Merch
Guardians Vol 3 just made $800M+ but Disney had had a rough year this year.
Corporations work so hard to make sure their employees can't afford to buy anything.
The typical economy is going to end up in the same ditch as in the 1930s, simply because people in expensive business suits won't stop stuffing their pockets at the expense of everyone else.
Thing is that when last time there was writers strike there was tons of awesome series running. Currently series or movies from Hollywood are mostly trash. This is why it's really hard to garner sympathy for the writers unlike last time.
Also why AI will replace them
@@coolbuddydude1ai would spit out the same crap bc like the writers it would still have to write the bad crap the Hollywood executives want. I'm not sure where the idea that writers are the ones telling Hollywood execs what movies/shows to make is coming from lol
this is one of the rare times that I actually have some hope for a strike to work the last time we had actor and writer strikes it worked out pretty well and they seem to have a good structure to help each other out with bills while they're picketing if we're really lucky this could even lead to a boom of good original films after the fact which have been far and few between in recent years
It won't the AI revolution has started, and it won't stop with writers thats for sure.
@@EmilKlingberg Sure AI can create write a lot of material really quickly. However, AI cannot create anything new and creative, human can though. That's the writers advantage over AI.
If Hollywood completely collapsed, and not a single film was ever released from that system ever again the collective reaction of the world today would be.... meh, so what.
Threatening to blacklist "influencers" from their guild, who aren't even a part of the guild, sounds illegal.
Oh you mean like the time when the US used Marines to brutalized banana plantation workers in a foreign country.
It’s almost like the film industry is too big to fail and deserves to be broken up…
If a corporation can afford to not be in operation for months while their workers can’t pay rent or feed themselves, I think that corporation shouldn’t exist
Both the companies and the unions save money in anticipation of potential strikes
Then there would be no point in a company existing if the workers necessarily always win the strike. Like suppose we legislate it to where workers would always win the strike, then the workers could just say "Pay us all $200/hour" and the company would have to agree or go out of business. There has to be a threat of losing to both sides.
@@nyferox5637 that case the threat is the going out of business because they can't afford the pay
Seems reasonable to me
@@nyferox5637 none of what you said is even implied by my comment. I never implied that workers should always win. I only said that if a company cannot pay their workers enough to meet basic necessities while simultaneously paying their executives and shareholders hundreds of millions of dollars and not creating new products/services, I think that company shouldn’t exist.
In the entire history of worker strikes, how often is it the case that workers’ demands were unreasonable? Rarely, if ever was that the case. So don’t pretend that the scenario you presented is even remotely possible.
If you’re going to criticize me for having a controversial opinion, at least make sure you know my stance. In fact, I think there should be a maximum wage.
it doesnt need to, film industry will break itself up
If it fails then honestly studios loose a lot of writer as they might just have to drop writing as a profession or look else where for those that will pay them better. Studios use what ever they can to cut cost, AI outsourcing to third world countries, or hiring gratuities for pennies that don't know better. But here's the thing none of these have the experience of actually writing for the studios, sure they can maybe do the technical work but they don;t have the experience or knowledge. And we saw what happens these studio end up going the way of new journalism. They become a pathetic husk of what they once were as they look for ever more desperate way of keeping their earning up.
While I agree with you.... Aren't these studios ALREADY pathetic husks? Every year, how many actually good movies/TV shows we get? How many original ones?
What I find the most trouble with in regards to supporting their cause is that, honestly, I don't think these people should be in the field to begin with. If you are going to write stuff that is on par with whatever crap Chat-GPT can spit out, then I do kind of hope you get fired, simple as that.
I feel bad for people due to their personal lives, it's awful, but Hollywood as a whole needs to collapse. There is almost nothing to be salvaged. Good talent will survive, scatter, then group again and start from scratch, and all this extra fat has to go. And that is the true too for TV.
I wouldn't be surprised if instead of adaptations, they'd just import TV shows and movies wholesale. Imagine the upsurge of Koreanovelas, or Mexican Soap Operas... 😅😅😅
They were going to do that anyways.
@HarmonyEdge
Well, anime did go mainstream after all. Same with J and Kpop
Even though the studios are losing money right now, the only one where the demands would exceed ONE PERCENT of their profits is Paramount
how can you be taking losses, and thus presumably not making profit, and also have the demands be less than 1% of said profit?
One of the demands is to not use AI writers, that alone makes up way way way more than 1 percent of profits as it allows them to replace hundreds of writers with 1 AI manager.
@@skiefyre123 the ai bit makes sense but the rest of there strike is about money they are not making money with agenda failed films all failing.
@@skiefyre123who would manage terrible AI that does nothing but steal from actual writers and write pure unwatchable garbage.
@@sticy5399 Someone who wants to make 900k a year...... (fyi that is what Netflix just offered for that position)
I want the strike to last forever. What on earth will will happen if we don’t get more comic book movie sequels? Independent content will continue gaining eyeballs. Good.
SAG-AFTRA already had an agreement in their 2022 guidelines that said no one who’s a member of the union could give their likeness for AI, I’m wondering what changed, especially with the last 6 months.
SAG-AFTRA is the employee union side. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers AMPTP aka media companies are always trying to change up the contract for their financial interest obviously. It's the Media Companies who propose the contract clauses i.e. changes to AI use of Likeness then SAG-AFTRA has to fight for a better deal.
Studio movie makes double digit billion dollars, the CEOs make Millions a year, but Hollywood says the writers pay is the problem.
well the hollywood in this context is those exact executive who get millions every year
they literally collude by making an organization to "make deal with the union" but in reality its to discuss how to pay the worker as little as possible while maximizing their profit
Name one writer who's worth millions of dollars but doesn't get that pay. Then tell me why he's equivalent to a CEO responsible for thousands of people and the fruitfulness of their careers that they'll hopefully keep for life
@@nickydee569 My brother in society, a CEO is responsible for a lot of people, but is any CEO worth 250 MILLION DOLLARS a YEAR!? The max I would say is about 10-15 million. Anything more and writing/acting/props/post/VFX has to suffer and you are already seeing the result of all those sufferings
@@unnecoppro We base monetary value on outcome not opinion
@@nickydee569 Good so you do accept that the writers who are ACTUALLY responsible for the multi-million/billion dollar blockbusters should be paid more?
I hope it fails. Most Hollywood's writers are mediocre.
Maybe we will see more from other countries, and that is a really good thing.
Lmfao, Linus with the total war analogy
To play devil's advocate here: What's stopping writers in other non-ununionized industries from replacing TV/movie writers? And to continue down the devil's advocate role: Hasn't writing quality been on a steep decline the past decade? Netflix, Disney, HBO, and Hulu's exclusive shows have been major disappointments. Game of Thrones being the perfect example
To be fair, Game of Thrones started off great which is ironically a huge part of the reason why it was so disappointing in the first place.
@jwebcoding7289 it was good at first because DD didn't try to rewrite everything yet
Netflix had many good shows, they canceled many out of blue but that like the most common complaint about netflix - that show you like will be just cancelled. They even shared same problem on wan show not long ago.
And what's stopping writers outside of union from replacing those? If the pay is as they describe it you would need to look for very desperate people so your chance of getting anything of quality is even lower
I don't think quality is going down, I think people most of the time just cherry pick the good series, and also we are creating more media which means more trash, you can't have a good serie each week
@@neociber24 I think the argument which I kinda agree with is that the BIG movies are not as well written. The Box Office Toppers. There are plenty of well written shows and movies but I feel they are found in med/smaller projects. I could be wrong. I am a casual movie/showe enjoyer.
Less writers seems like a win to me.
You must live a sad life. That the only time you can possibly experience happiness is when everyone else suffers. No wonder you're so lonely
@@BaconDragon-yr5vf Have you even seen movies in the last 5 years?
@@o00nemesis00o yes, have you read a book in the last 5 years that wasn't a majority pictures
Employees are always treated worse then a company is struggling so of course that's the time that the strikes happen. It's always been like that.
I support the idea, not the work, they are terrible at their jobs.
Movie studio's lie about losing money. Return of the Jedi, which is 15th in US box office history has no profit according to movie studio "accounting"
Revenue does not equal profit.
@@abramjones15 yes but that is not what is happening here. Look up Hollywood accounting.
As a visual effects artist with a family....this is more than challenging...this is fucking terrifying!
That’s what made me switch careers in college. The grind and instability were not worth it for me.
Disney hired JJ Abrams(Writer of Lost and admitted man unable to write endings) to write the END of their starwars Trilogy. If they wanted to make money the board would fire the CEO and hire someone to clean house.
Funny that Warner Brothers and CW have pulled out of Vancouver Canada now that Washington State has made it cheap to film there. Coincidence?
Trust CEO Linus for an opinion on unions
I hope LTT staff form a union
I think this is a misread of how much leverage actors and writers have on their shows.
Sure, corporate entities are concerned with losing money. Know what ensures continued lost revenue? Poorly written and badly acted shows that nobody watches.
So sure, they *could* probably steamroll the SAG etc. and try to create new seasons etc. but I don't see that working as well as they think it would. Especially if well-known actors aren't playing roles people expect.
Like a lot of people mentioned - this was an inevitable situation resulting from a push in recent years to stream without updating to modernize accordingly. Also, maybe don't pay your executives huge sums and then complain about lack of revenue.
but recent shows where sag has been involved are already poorly written with bad acting. what leverage? all of hollywood just needs to fail, honestly. just read the book or go outside instead.
2:20 "I don't think they have as much leverage as they think they do".
BINGO
When your bro knows your gaming history as intimately as you do...
7:19 just in case someone wonders what it means that it's not white and black (without going into that topic again) - Linus was (and presumably is) against unions in his company and conflict of interests is quite straightforward
Someone will for sure say it has some disadvantages for few people, especially when it's not common, like in North America but benefits (for workers) far outweigh problems.
Also problems could be solved with help of legislature but it won't happen because stronger union is just bigger problem for companies and they pull the strings in politics. That's why companies never say "unions should be improved" but "you shouldn't join the union at all"
If your employees are paid well, and have good benefits and working conditions, no they don't need a union.
@@squidwardo7074 until you stop paying them well and they don't have union to fight that. I mean good for owner of the company, sucks for them.
But yeah, employer would never do that, especially companies with millions of dollars 😉
@@cyjanek7818 It's like having a good dictator. Yeah, you don't need checks and balances if the king is a great person but he won't be king forever and no matter how much vetting the king does, he can't guarantee the next king will always be great. Checks and balances like unions are essential to guarantee future stability for employees.
@@alexmartin6561 This isn't as witty of a take as you think it is.
I was intrigued by the topic and was looking forward to the discussion about it, and then y'all didn't even really talk about it at all.
should've called it the film actors guild, the acronym much better describes hollywood writers and actors
I'm just glad some one on CZcams if talking more about it.
has anything with good writing been released in the last 5 years anyway? let them quit, we need new writers
this is kinda a weird take because the writers and actors have a fuck load of leverage here. these companies have made alot of money over the past decade with all the new stuff. the estimated loses to come are in the billions and with the actors joining in the "starve them out" thing wont work
Have you forgotten Covid? And as was mentioned, Disney just had a lot of unsuccessful movies in a row.
they'll just make reality tv garbage
Not to mention that other unions are assisting as well, such as Teamsters
Disney made a profit of over $4bn this quarter alone, the big studios are not starving one bit.
@@Henrik_Holst A writing strike takes a while to hit their bottom line. These companies will see how their slate of upcoming releases is drying up though, even if we aren't.
Quantity budget over quality budget. That's the primary issue with movie production today, I believe.
Instead of paying writers and creatives a decent wage to write decent stories (how are you supposed to be creative when you struggle even paying health insurance?), they compensate by making high-budget explosions and hiring overpaid actors.
Inflation obviously doesn't help, but that's not the culprit.
Since when paying writers a decent wage makes them write better stories? In past great writers would auction off their scripts, that’s how they make bank. Writing isn’t a job.
Also thank you for not calling it “Fort Za”, it’s Forza, not Fort Pizza
For a strike to work you need something to offer.
I really love Linus, but this is (a slightly) wrong take regarding the way SAG-AFTRA/WGA talks to the public. The guidelines of no promotion are strictly for SAG-AFTRA members and they are written that way so no one can claim they didn't understand or studios try to get an actor to wriggle out of Union rules using clever lawyer tricks, cause believe me they will try. What the writers are asking for would cost the studios in total about $68 million dollars (almost nice) for Netflix while one studio paid their CEO $250 MILLION DOLLARS in a SINGLE year. So it is pretty black and white here
Yeah, unfortunately a lot of people less aware of labor issues misunderstood it even though I feel like the writing was very clear. They've even been responding to questions people have had online but unfortunately most people just take a quick glance at things and keep moving on.
Nope, SAG also asked influencers who, if they ever even wanted to join SAG, not even that they were members currently, that they couldn't do the stuff Linus was talking about. And that's what rubs me (and Linus it seems) the wrong way.
@@zzzyyyxxx Which i have to agree with. Those people arent in SAG, they arent getting the strike benefits that come with being in SAG so to tell them they cant work or else will never get into SAG while having no other means of income because the content is their income, is heartless.
@@zzzyyyxxx If they are not firm with their messaging to influencers the studios will hire armies of them and go business as usual during promotion. This strict messaging is because of that. I understand it rubs us the wrong way and they should be gentler if they can but we had an executive anonymously say to Deadline during an interview "let them lose their apartments and houses". They literally said that. So SAG-AFTRA/WGA understand they are in it 'do or die'. That is the only reason for somewhat harsh messaging
its amazing how streaming and movie services can waste so much movie.
Lol I thought Linus was going to say he will join in the strike by not paying his employees.
Linus honestly is giving the c-suite vibe more and more.
he is already doing that
The strike so ruthless right now that NBC trimmed the trees along the side walk so picketers don't have shade. NBC tried to say this was a normal thing they do, but the trees actually belong to the city and NBC doesn't have nor have they ever, had a city permit to manage the trees that along the sidewalk outside of their lot.
linus "adblockers are piracy" techtips says hes glad a movie got leaked lol
Total War and Anno 1800, Linus has some good taste!
A lot of the products coming out of Hollywood right now are hot garbage due to bad writing/scripting (combined with amazing visuals/acting), whether that's the writers agenda's or the management above it does make it hard to sympathize with them.
Even though 70s and 90s cinema was INCREDIBLY politically driven….
Couldn't care less about the strike, the quality of shows and movies has been just terrible, with so many franchises butchered because writers couldn't just leave well alone and had to insert their own "MESSAGE" into whatever they're involved with, even if it had zero relation to the core theme.
How sure are you that it was the writers and not the marketers/execs who wanted to make content as marketable as possible and 'pander' to certain audiences?
@@Teladi-Never-Paid-Dividends Very certain. You can easily tell when a great idea is watered down or violated by committee versus inner that are just rotten at the core.
When you have popular franchises that are changed for no good reasons other than to fit some political agenda, it's clear that the writers are the ones pushing for it, the marketers and executives are only enablers at that point.
You mean a labor conflict was mishandled, and ever dependent upon dictating terms to outside parties not involved? ... WHere haven't we seen this before.
They don't have to make good movies, they just have to fool investors and customers
Most of the movies released in the last few years have been really bad. What's the reason for this? Well I think it's a combination of things, but I tend to suspect a signicant portion of it is the Writers. Many of them don't know how to tell a 'Good Story'.
Unions getting uppity thinking they can dictate how non union workers act
the scooby doo thing makes me think of tank girl. Where the original/directors cut is apparently sitting in a vault somewhere never to see the light of day.
The difference is that there is no other version of Scoob Haunted Holidays than the directors cut. So nothing anyone can actually see.
Unions and union history is very nuanced in US and global history, but what is not nuanced. Is the fact that if workers have no leverage. They do not get a good deal. This is why big companies spend millions on lobbies to make sure they have political leverage towards the nations laws that impact them. This notion workers do not need the same towards their employers that have an impact on them is silly. I think Hollywood will cut cost to the point they will negatively impact their revenue stream, via less quality output, ability to recruit future talent and qualified people to produce enough content people will watch etc, if the strikers do not win this tbh.
Independent from who is actually wrong or right….Something about how he views his own opinions as “right”and differing opinions are “wrong” rubs me the wrong way.
Where does he do that?
Wouldn't it be good for new screenwriters to join the industry, since the old ones are why movies are no bad now?
There was an interesting NPR interview with David Simon that might shed some light on this. Basically, 20 years or so ago, writers wouldn't just write the script- they would stick around on set, work with the director on revisions, reconceptualizing scenes to better fit the actors, and so on. And even in preproduction, there'd be several writers working on ideas for films/tv shows for several weeks before they actually started scripting; multiple writers leads to more creativity/originality overall since every writer has their own style/experiences to bring to the table.
Nowadays, the preproduction period is much shorter, and after the writer finishes the script, they might not be hired whatsoever to aid in revision or otherwise. The showrunner essentially takes over all of that (which further splits their attention from all the other things they were doing).
Another more "passive" change is that usually, a project would hire both experienced and new writers: not only did this aid in bringing in new ideas, it also ensured that when experienced writers retired, they would be replaced with a generation that was also experienced. There's a lot less of this now, so although shows/movies might have an experienced writer, when they opt to go for a newer writer, that newer writer does not have the same experience/mentorship as they might've 20 years ago. Because of this, it may be why you think a lot of the writers around today suck: they don't have the same experiences as writers from 20 years ago, so they do suck.
So, in older movies you're used to seeing a story that's gone through many revisions and tweaks throughout the process. In newer movies, what you see is much closer to the first or second draft. So although sometimes the story can be good (either through luck or if the studio opts to use older methods), most of the time, your first draft of anything sucks.
New doesn’t necessarily equal good
Wayland or just "Whale"-"LAN"? can somebody explain the play on words?
well said
To be fair most of the scripts are crap, the vision is crap etc. So I don't give a crap, it''s not that I cannot live without it. That applies to games too, by the way.
Hey everyone, I just wanted to say that I'm glad there are still videos out there where there's a normal conversational tone and people are talking reasonably. Because the whole aggressive Attitude that currently pervades online discussions is frankly exhausting
You are just talking about Hollywood accounting and buying it hook line and sinker. They have ALWAYS claimed to be losing money. They claimed the Harry potter movies "lost" money. Same with Return of the jedi. They tend to have clauses where big actors/writers will get a portion of the profit but would you you look at that most of them do not generate a "profit".
I'd like to hear your take on the nuance regarding unions.
Also, is there something negative or controversial regarding the Barbie movie that I missed?
Yep definitely cant afford anything, except 200 million a year on one ceos wages
its bs to claim they cant afford it or are so poor as they post record profits or exuitive pay, as always labour has the power! soladerity with the strikers, everyone deserves better working conditions!
@@teamgeist3328 na I actually do since my whole family works in the film industry, in Australia but it's semantics.
beyond that it's a fact that our labour is what's generating all wealth the wealthy enjoy.
So when ceo can from a billionaire camp say "writers and actors are being unreasonable we just can't afford it" I call bs
@@teamgeist3328 sure am not that it has any impact on anything
@@teamgeist3328do you actually have some kind of a point you want to make?
Streaming services were doomed to fail eventually and will morph back into programming television for all of them eventually.
Programming was subsidized by advertising, requiring an incentive to build good or better television to acquire some money back to offset the cost of production. Now we have "ad-free" tiers that over time have gone up year over year. No matter how many subscribers you have, you're missing money on the table when you don't get that advertising revenue. However, shows are costing millions of dollars. 10s to even Hundreds of millions for some shows. A single 8-10 episode show at best costing $200M is ridiculous!
At the end of it all, I expect this writers strike to not go the way they hope. Companies are going to downsize, cutdown, and I think try something new. I don't even pay for more than one streaming service honestly. I don't have enough hours in the day to watch more than a show or two a month, so I can swap around because I truly don't care what's on anymore.
Lol no the biggest reason is that we now live in an age of the internet where Piracy is immortally tenacious. Seriously, consider that in the days of programming TV's monolithic superiority the internet was in a very rough spot worldwide. Today you put a media product out and it can instantly be pirated and dumped from an Eastern European or some other 2nd/ 3rd world region hosted library. All you need is a VPN and all that's yours (you don't even need that 95% of the times rn), programming TV and Movies will never be able to regain all that ground without demolishing the internet itself.
There is simply tooo many writers in Hollywood.
with how dogshit their writing is, I'm not surprised that writers don't get paid much.
The guilds have pumped out garbage for the last decade, i dont want these people making anymore movies, their leaders view themselves above regular "meat packers" and "drone like programmers". Just them trying to ban AI shows how weak their mindset is.
It will fail, it should fail. Being a waiter and writing screenplays nobody wants does not make you a writer. Same goes for "actors"
VC needs to pay for indie film studios. It's like maybe you'll get another Tarantino or Paul Thomas Anderson
Breaking News: Business Owner dislikes Unions
If there is solidarity between the actors and screenwriters union the studios will bend the knee eventually. Those two need to work together to bring the pain the studios
Studios have 100 years of material to use and their current dumpster fires like Dial of Dysentery, Rings of Power, pretty much anything related to Marvel/DC aren't making them jack squat.
Imagine seeing Jaws on the big screen in some limited rerelase, or ET, or the original Matrix, or heck Gone With the Wind instead of the current dreck
@@alphax4785 So what you're saying is, the longer the strike goes on, the better movies we get? Nice!
If the people on strike are the people responsible for the media we've seen come out in the last decade then I think it's better most of them find another line of work.
Why should I actually believe that the studios are not making money on current projects when they claim that lord of the rings, Harry Potter and Star Wars have never made money. It’s Hollywood accounting. This has been going on for decades. They make plenty of money.
The bubble is bursting with streaming services. Anyone who's over 25 can see it as they've seen this exact thing happen before in other contexts
I am shocked that the linus wont let his workers unionize joke hasnt made the comments section many times over yet. I guess he caved and let them have the lamp over the monitors for everyone.