The world's top stars, collectively rotten!

Hollywood, this is miserable.

The screenwriters' strike has been going on for two months.

Now, the actors are also "rotten".

160,000 Hollywood film and television employees, newly joined the strike.

No one wrote and no one acted, and the film and television industry was completely stopped.

In the past, Hollywood would shoot at least a dozen movies and TV dramas at the same time every week.

Now, there is not one.

Follow-up dramas such as "Little Sheldon", "Stranger Things" and "The Handmaid's Tale" were all postponed.

Movies, of course, are not immune.

Marvel blockbusters bear the brunt.

"Deadpool 3" and "Venom 3" have suspended filming.

Warner's annual masterpiece "Dune 2" has also decided to postpone its release to 2024.

Many well-known actors also appeared in this strike and march.

"Hulk" Uncle Mark took to the street, waving his fists and holding high:

Unite for a better future!

85-year-old Oscar actress Jane Fonda spared no effort to preach.

There is also Rachel McAdams, the heroine of "Love Notes" and "Time and Space Love Traveler", who also took to the streets to join them.

I am here to support the unions, and the demands of the unions are very legitimate.

Faced with this situation, many people said:

Hollywood is done now!

Really?

Today, I will sort it out with you to see if this world's number one star-making factory is really going to finish.

Two months ago, Uncle Yu talked about the reason for the screenwriters' strike.

If you want to see it, you can review it (click to review), and I will not repeat it here.

So far, no satisfactory settlement has been reached between the writers' union and the production union, so the strike continues.

One wave is not flat, and another wave is rising.

The Screen Actors Guild also joined the strike.

As a result, both the scale and scope of influence have risen by a large level.

Screen Actors Guild of America, abbreviated SAG-AFTRA.

This is the largest showbiz strike since the 60s.

It was also the first time in 63 years that the two major unions of Hollywood screenwriters and actors went on strike at the same time.

It even spilled over to other behind-the-scenes industries, such as stylists, prop makers, accountants, catering, and so on.

The famous entertainment magazine "Variety" predicted:

If this strike is not properly resolved, then the US stock market will also be hit hard as time goes on.

So, what are the demands of this actor's strike?

First and foremost, it is for a money word.

You may be surprised -

How can actors be short of money? Aren't they all paid 2.08 million a day?

After all, Tom received a salary of $100 million (about 720 million yuan) last year for "Top Gun 2" alone.

But in fact, actors who can really become big stars and earn extremely high incomes account for only a small part.

Most members of the Screen Actors Guild do not earn as much as the average person.

An actor in "Women's Prison" shared on social media his score from 44 episodes: $27.3 (about 197 yuan).

There are also many actors who can't even get a low-income salary and can't afford health insurance.

Therefore, what this strike seeks is to guarantee the treatment of low-level actors and staff.

Including raising basic salary, pension, medical insurance, etc.

Many big coffee's voices are not actually for themselves, but to help nearly 160,000 ordinary actors and grassroots employees.

As Matt Damon said:

The purpose of our strike is very important.

We should protect those on the margins.

$26,000 per year is necessary for you to get health insurance.

……

For a lot of actors, it's the difference between having health insurance or not, and we have to do what's good for them.

Oops.

In recent years, the living conditions of low-level actors have continued to decline.

A large part of the reason is the development of streaming media.

This is similar to the problem faced by screenwriters.

In the past, TV stations typically guaranteed a minimum wage, and both replays and resales paid more in cuts.

Emerging streaming platforms have not established such norms or paid only a small amount of revenue.

So over the years, the platform has become richer and richer, but the creators and actors have become poorer and poorer.

They (capital, studios) lose money as an excuse

It also gives their CEOs hundreds of millions of dollars

Disgusting!

Actors Guild President Fran Drixher gives a strike speech

And what scares the actors even more is that AI invades.

In the negotiations leading up to the strike, representatives of the producers put forward a bizarre-sounding condition:

It is hoped that the rights to use the actor's portrait can be bought.

That is, through a one-time payment, the image of an actor is scanned with AI.

After that, the portrait can be used without the person's permission and without paying new remuneration.

Isn't this the realistic version of "Black Mirror"!

The latest season of "Black Mirror" has an episode that describes this terrible future.

The image of the actor is used unscrupulously in the online drama compiled by AI.

However, the bad influence of online dramas still plays a role in the actors themselves.

The actor wants to take back his rights.

However, he was told that because he signed the image rights agreement, he could not sue the other party.

Unexpectedly, this drama has just been broadcast for a month, and it will come true in reality?

An earlier sci-fi movie "Futurology Conference" presents us with an even more absurd picture of the future.

Actress Robin White sold her image to the company.

Since then, she can only appear in movies as an avatar.

Fortunately at first, she herself did not need to contribute to a regular income.

But later, because of the development of technology, everyone can transform into the image they want in the virtual world, and things become more and more uncontrollable.

On the one hand, security issues have become a hidden danger.

When everyone can hide behind the avatar, who can guarantee that there will be no lawbreakers?

On the other hand, the world is becoming less and less real.

The image of a star can be used by many people.

Reality doesn't matter anymore.

Everyone lives in illusory dreams.

Only those in power who hold copyrights are constantly grabbing wealth behind their backs.

The uniqueness of man disappears and ceases to be human.

Just items, just leeks.

In fact, the explosion of AI technology was just one trigger for this strike.

Hidden behind the scenes are the various crises that Hollywood has accumulated over the years.

As early as ten years ago, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, two Hollywood directors, predicted:

There will be an inevitable "implosion" in the future, which will permanently change the mode of cinema.

Looking back at the past decade, what will we find?

First of all, the monopoly of super-British IP, the sharp decline of small and medium-cost films.

The landscape of Hollywood has long quietly changed.

The value of IP is getting higher and higher, and the value of originality is getting lower and lower.

This also makes the living space of new directors increasingly squeezed, and even the foothold of big directors is gradually getting smaller.

Famous directors like Spielberg have gradually lost their box office appeal.

Last year's new film "Dream House" performed very poorly at the box office.

Second, globalization is receding, and Hollywood narratives are gradually failing.

Small and medium-cost films are becoming more and more difficult, and the market for Hollywood blockbusters is also in crisis.

In the 90s, Hollywood blockbusters spread across the country, causing a wave.

But as the globalization boom waned, so did the enthusiasm for these blockbusters.

Commercial blockbusters and super IPs can't last forever.

Spielberg has predicted that Hollywood may have 3-4 or even 6 movies that cost $250 million (about 1.8 billion yuan) to fail.

The truth is that by this year, Hollywood had exceeded that target.

"Transformers: The Rise of the Power Warriors" failed at the box office

Moreover, streaming media has become mainstream, and TV and theaters have declined.

The rise of streaming media, represented by Netflix, is constantly changing the business model of this industry.

The most obvious problem is that the value standard of the work has been rewritten.

Traffic, become the first criterion.

The hot spots and trends that rise and fall quickly can easily let both labor and management get on the head.

But behind the flowers is the abyss of the market full and unclear.

Just as in the past two years, after Korean films have become traffic passwords, local creation has gradually fallen into crisis.

Finally, special effects technology is becoming more and more mature, and the value of actors is increasingly ignored.

As viewers, we have long been aware that:

Today's computer effects are enough to fake the real thing.

An actor who has passed away can be resurrected on the screen.

Older actors, can return to youth.

You don't even need the image of an actor, you can directly change your skin.

In a few years, with the rapid development of AI technology, how much weight will live-action play occupy in movies?

When all these crises are projected on the actor, it translates into a panic about substitution.

With the rise of superhero movies, the role of stars as actors has actually declined significantly.

Like the superhero movies of Marvel and DC, everyone watches Batman, Spider-Man, and Superman.

Not behind Robert Pattinson, Dutch brother and tycoon.

Admittedly, as actors they are still highly attractive, but ultimately "replaceable".

Not to mention, there are more and more animated films that do not need actors at all.

Who would have thought.

The global box office champion in the first half of this year was "Super Mario Brothers".

Take a look at the most eye-catching series of commercial blockbusters of the moment.

Almost only the "Mission Impossible" series, but also firmly rely on Tom's personal charm and influence.

And Tom has only one key to being invincible, real shooting.

People's biggest expectations for this series of movies are to see how Tom breaks through his own limits and personally completes the impossible shooting.

This tension and charm that belongs to the mortal fetus of the flesh is also difficult to bring about by digital AI.

And Tom's insistence on making movies without stand-ins and digital special effects is highlighting the self-worth of an actor.

But the question is:

How many actors can you be Tom?

However, Hollywood, which is full of crises, is not irreparable.

This is not the first time in history that Hollywood has been sung in high profile.

Each serious challenge drives a bottom-up reform movement.

And the strike movement is often the outpost of the evolution of the industry.

Now we have the Screen Actors Guild

In the 30s, Hollywood was hit by sound films, and the silent film landscape was reshuffled.

At the same time, the world was plunged into an unprecedented Great Depression.

The earliest film actors union was born in this period.

The purpose is to protect the basic income of actors.

This change also helped Hollywood, which had fallen to the bottom, come back to life and usher in a golden age.

In the 60s, Hollywood was hit by television again.

At the same time, the rise of European and Japanese films has made the old genre films in the United States lose their appeal.

Hollywood, which has been hit hard, has also broken out a huge strike movement.

Readjust the minimum income and salary calculation of screenwriters, actors, and other staff.

At the same time, young filmmakers have set off a new wave of profound significance.

Thus were born heavyweight directors such as Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.

And in this general strike, we can also see some special turnarounds.

Independent film companies, for example, have had rare opportunities for development.

There were 39 independent productions unrelated to the Producers' Union that were approved for filming during the strike after confirmation from the Screen Actors Guild.

Among them is the A24 work, which has sprung up in recent years.

From this point of view, it is difficult to say whether this time will be another metabolism of Hollywood.

As an irreversible social change, technological development is a fact that we cannot change.

But people always have to find a place in it, seek development.

So, in Uncle Yu's opinion:

A strike does not mean the end, let alone a symbol of rot.

Rather, there is a new possibility lurking.

It is this possibility of change that has driven the continuous development of cinema for more than a hundred years.

I have to say that this is precisely what we should reflect.

End of full text.