#netflix walkout

[dwreader]

A Meal to Remember by @iwtvfanevents

Part 2: I am suddenly Megan Ellison, a wealthy lesbian, my father is a billionaire who has allowed me to start my own production company to make films I want to see. Money is no object. Here are the fics I would adapt and who I would hire (bully into) directing.

1. Reformation by verseau - first of all, I would pay $1 billion to acquire the rights outcompeting Amazon, Netflix and Apple and I would make Betsy adapt the screenplay. I maintain this must be cinematic because Ldpdl’s hole needs to be experienced in 70mm imax AND I would not allow any countries to censor like they did to Florence’s boobs. This would be like an Eternal Sunshine/Blue Valentine/Two for the Road type romantic dramedy that jumps back and forth in time to show the couple’s struggles and progression, and the non-linear storytelling means it automatically becomes an Oscar frontrunner. I would try to hire Barry Jenkins first but he is occupied with The Lion King 2 at Disney so then I would go to Mia Hansen-Love to direct. Beyoncé does the soundtrack. I didn’t even have to ask her she just wanted to.

2. Part of Your World by weathermood - I will imprison Mr. Monsterfucker himself Guillermo Del Toro until he agrees to direct this film like I am Kathy Bates in Misery. He will read it and then be like okay I agree you don’t need to kidnap me I will make this movie. We are going full Avatar 2 level budget to make sure underwater scenes are believable cause I won’t tolerate bad Aquaman CGI. The budget balloons to $400m but that’s okay cause it makes $2.7b worldwide and there’s 2 sequels greenlit immediately cause the world wants to see Louis get pregnant.

3. A Potentiality for Corruption by vampdf - Guillermo is occupied with Part of Your World and its sequels now so I turn to Robert Eggers to help bring to life this gothic horror romance. It’s 3 hours long. Parts of it are in black and white and there’s aspect ratio changes that confuse and unsettle the audience. We debut at Cannes. We get a 47 minute standing ovation but also some walkouts and fainting in the crowd because some vanilla viewers couldn’t handle the ending, which is controversial but has everyone talking.

4. Cord of Communion by themasterletters- this has now become a #1 nyt best selling novel so we have a built in audience and they want it to be a tv show cause of its length and we can’t skip out on any important points. Every streamer wants it but I choose HBO cause of the prestige factor and I’m an Emmy whore. It becomes Sunday night essential viewing replacing Succession it’s like if The Idol was actually good. I hire many talented directors such as Raine Allen Miller (Rye Lane), Francis Lee (God’s Own Country), Gina Prince Bythewood (Beyond the Lights) and I make Rolin Jones be my showrunner. We sweep the Emmys. The episode where Lestat fires Louis becomes the new Red Wedding traumatizing millions.

5. Pieta by baberainbow - When iwtv the amc show ends, I hire Paul Verhoeven to direct a standalone sequel film based on this fic. It’s as insane as you could ever imagine. The Catholic Church is mad at us. It’s condemned by the Vatican and the anti-feminization police. They’re protesting outside our premiere like they did to Benedetta. It doesn’t matter cause it just makes the film an even bigger hit.

6. Hand to God by boltcutters - first I pay Ziska $1 billion to finish writing this. Then I go back in time to 1933 first to make Hollywood not adopt the Hays Code so we can have gay and interracial stuff in movies and then to 1946 so Howard Hawks can direct this Danlou version of The Big Sleep.

PSA: some of my links aren’t working cause I’m on my phone (on vaca) so please forgive me but y’all know where these fics are don’t lie!!!

[iww-gnv]

LOS ANGELES, July 14 (Reuters) - Striking Hollywood actors were due to join film and television writers on picket lines on Friday, the first day of a dual work stoppage that has forced U.S. productions to shutter as workers battle over pay in the streaming TV era. The twin strikes will add to the economic damage from the writers walkout that started on May 2, delivering another blow to the multi-billion-dollar industry as it struggles with changes to its business. Hollywood has not faced two simultaneous strikes since 1960. Both SAG-AFTRA - Hollywood's largest union, representing 160,000 film and television actors - and the Writers Guild of America (WGA) are demanding increases in base pay and residuals, or fees paid from streaming television, plus assurances that their work will not be replaced by artificial intelligence (AI). The actors' union said on Thursday its board had unanimously agreed to a strike after failing to reach a deal with studios, including Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) and Netflix Inc (NFLX.O). Officials said actors would join picket lines in New York and Los Angeles starting on Friday.

[thebestestwinner]

(gift link)

Our current bracket tournament is for screenplays, but we support the actors, too! Both unions deserve what they’re asking!

[lenbryant]

(Long rePost) "Blood in the water"

How SAG-AFTRA strike will create global havoc for Hollywood - Los Angeles Times

SAG-AFTRA members picket outside Netflix in Hollywood on Friday, the first day of the union’s strike — and first such walkout in 43 years.

(Myung Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Hollywood top executives figured they could ride out a skirmish with screenwriters reeling from technology’s changes to the industry.

But few executives were prepared for — or wanted — a strike by the industry’s largest union, SAG-AFTRA, which represents 160,000 actors and other performers. 

After talks over a new contract collapsed last week, throngs of performers joined writers on picket lines — plunging Los Angeles’ signature industry into chaos and further complicating what some fear could become a long and devastating strike.

Movie shoots have ground to a halt. A-list stars have bailed on film and TV marketing campaigns. Matt Damon, Cillian Murphy and other actors walked outduring Thursday night’s London premiere of Universal Pictures’ highly anticipated “Oppenheimer.” 

The upcoming fall TV season could sputter, devoid of new scripted episodes of “Abbott Elementary,” “Law & Order: SVU” and “NCIS.” And media companies that were already struggling to compete in the streaming era could see their fortunes further sink.

“There’s going to be a lot of blood in the water,” Jonathan Taplin, director emeritus of USC’s Annenberg Innovation Lab, said. “This is not going to end well.”

Simultaneous strikes by the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists — the first joint work stoppage since Ronald Reagan led SAG in 1960 — couldn’t come at a worse time for traditional entertainment companies.

Their businesses haven’t fully recovered from pandemic shutdowns. Walt Disney Co., Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery have been grappling with heavy debt loads due to mergers, and also from ordering dozens of shows to ramp up their streaming services. All the while, linear broadcast and cable TV networks have witnessed a precipitous slide in viewers to Netflix and other streaming services.

“The economics of the industry are very challenging — the worst that we’ve ever seen,” veteran media analyst Michael Nathanson said. “A prolonged strike will only make things worse.”

Amid a nationwide rise in labor activity, Hollywood’s discord has taken on the trappings of a larger cultural clash, ostensibly pitting everyday workers against top wage earners, America’s 1%. 

On picket lines and social media sites, richly compensated industry leaders, including Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger and Warner Bros. Discovery Chief David Zaslav, are being portrayed as cartoon villains.

Outside Disney’s Burbank headquarters on Friday, a striking worker hoisted a sign that depicted Iger’s face superimposed on a hand-drawn Marie Antoinette figure, holding a raspberry-colored confection under the words: “How about sharing some of that cake, Bob?” 

SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher, center, and SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, left, outside Netflix on Friday. 

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher, best known for starring in the 1990s sitcom “The Nanny,” has been celebrated among striking workers after her rousing speech Thursday to announce her board’s unanimous vote to call a strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the organization that negotiates on behalf of the media companies.

Actors are seeking higher minimum pay, increased residuals and revenue sharing with the streamers. They’ve demanded protections against the use of artificial intelligence to simulate background actors, known as “extras.” Writers have made similar demands, saying since the rise of streaming, midlevel writers have struggled to make a living wage.

“The entire business model has been changed because of streaming, digital and AI,” Drescher said. “At some point, you have to say ‘no, we’re not going to take this anymore.’”

The AMPTP defended the offer the group had made to actors, including what it said was the highest percentage increase in pay minimums in 35 years and a “groundbreaking” proposal for AI protections. 

“A strike is certainly not the outcome we hoped for as studios cannot operate without the performers that bring our TV shows and films to life,” the AMPTP said. “The union has regrettably chosen a path that will lead to financial hardship for countless thousands of people who depend on the industry.”

It’s not clear when bargaining sessions with the actors might resume. No talks are currently scheduled. 

AMPTP negotiators haven’t met with the WGA in more than two months.

Taplin, a former film producer who wrote a book about artificial intelligence, “The End of Reality: How Four Billionaires Are Selling Out Our Future,” said the threat posed by technology “for all artistic production is gigantic.”

“People worry, in the abstract, about AI replacing workers but here it is, it’s actually happening,” Taplin said. “They don’t want to have to pay for extras anymore, so they could have a scene that has 5,000 AI extras in the background.”

Technology also has upset Hollywood’s hierarchy. AMPTP’s shifting makeup now includes tech giants Amazon, Apple and Netflix — companies that don’t have a tradition of collective bargaining.

Veteran executives said the group, even in good economic times, formed an uneasy alliance. Member companies, including Disney, Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Netflix, are more accustomed to battling one another for viewers and revenue. 

And some in Hollywood have wondered whether the AMPTP’s shifting makeup will stand in the way of a deal. 

When reached for comment, AMPTP spokesperson Scott Rowe said: “The companies remain completely united.”

But unlike past strikes, including the 100-day standoff between writers and studios in 2007-2008, no leading executive has emerged to help broker labor peace.

Director Steven Spielberg, left, Disney CEO Bob Iger and director James Cameron in January. 

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Wall Street already has placed its bets, punishing the stocks of legacy media companies. 

Since the writers’ strike began in May, Disney’s stock has fallen 13% to $88.62 a share. Paramount has dropped more than 30% to $15.96 a share, and Warner Bros. Discovery has declined nearly 7% to $12.40. 

Shares of WBD, which owns HBO and CNN, closed at $12.40 on Friday, down nearly 50% since April 2022 when the smaller Discovery absorbed WarnerMedia — a deal that saddled the company with more than $45 billion in debt. 

In contrast, Netflix shares have soared 36% to $441.91 since the writers’ strike began.

Netflix now boasts a higher market value — nearly $200 billion — than Disney, the world’s largest entertainment company, which is valued at $162 billion. 

“Investors are saying Netflix can weather the storm,” Nathanson said. “They make a lot of shows, and stack them up because of the binge-viewing model. They also have a lot more international production that they can import.” 

Disney’s boss, Iger, appeared on business channel CNBC last week from the annual media mogul conference in picturesque Sun Valley, Idaho. The executive, who returned to the company in November, acknowledged that he underestimated the challenges confronting his company — particularly in the traditional television business.

“The disruptive forces that have been preying on that business for a while are greater than I thought,” Iger said. “We have to come to grips with that.”

Disney already has slashed nearly 7,000 jobs this year in an effort to save $5.5 billion. And in a nod to the changing winds, Iger suggested Disney might consider shedding linear channels, perhaps even the ABC television network. 

The company, he said, also is open to taking on a strategic partner for ESPN. 

Disney’s sports empire remains lucrative, but it is plagued by the trend of consumers ditching cable and satellite subscriptions in favor of streaming apps. At some point, the company plans to offer ESPN directly to consumers — but Iger didn’t say when.

“We’re seeing accelerated cord cutting as people are dropping the cable bundle,” Nathanson said. “And advertisers are no longer supporting the networks as they have in the past.” 

Broadcast networks — ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox — are expected to be hit hard by the twin strikes because they are most reliant on fresh programming. Late-night comedians, including ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel and CBS’ Stephen Colbert, have been off the air since early May, when the writers’ strike began.

If the two walkouts are not resolved before October, there probably won’t be any new scripted shows produced until next year, according to company insiders. 

And that could be devastating at a time when traditional networks are struggling to hold on to viewers.

“The networks have sports and news but a lot of their constituents are there to watch the prime-time shows,” said Neil Begley, a senior vice president for Moody’s Investors Service. “Among those viewers, there’s an expectation that fall is the start of the new season. The networks are going to have to reach far and wide for content to fill those hours.”

Compounding matters, this year’s annual TV advertising market, when TV networks sell their commercial time for the new season, has been sluggish.

“Advertisers don’t know what type of programming they’re going to get with these strikes,” Begley said. “They’re saying: Why commit?”

Privately, company executives say their businesses won’t feel much financial pain for several months. Without widespread production, costs will be lower, which translates into higher profits — at least in the short term.

Studios also are expected to begin canceling TV writers’ overall deals to find more savings.

But eventually, networks and streamers will run low on original episodes and media executives will be motivated to reach a detente.

“You can’t get by without actors,” Begley said. “The actors’ strike gave more leverage to the writers.”

Analysts and veteran executives said the market is straining to support all of the streaming services — and shows to stock them — launched in the last five or so years. Hollywood, they say, could look dramatically different after the strikes get resolved.

“Consolidation is going to happen,” predicted Nathanson. “Perhaps the strike will accelerate those moves as the weakness sets in. Some of these players are going to get weaker.”

Times staff writers Richard Verrier, Yvonne Villarreal, Ryan Faughnder, Stephen Battaglio and Anousha Sakoui contributed to this report.

[denimbex1986]

'There will be no fresh helpings of The White Lotus, The Last of Us or even Emily in Paris beaming into front rooms when summer fades. Nor will a screen version of the musical Wicked, starring Ariana Grande, be showing in your local cinema in the spring. And all shooting on Gladiator 2 in Morocco is likely to be indefinitely paused. Already, the wails are almost audible.

On this, the first weekend of the American screen actors’ strike, the level of frustration registered by film and TV drama fans around the world has dwarfed earlier reactions to the equivalent writers’ strike, running since the beginning of May.

Since negotiations collapsed in Los Angeles on Thursday, the gloves are off in a fight over the way the streaming services are seen to be pushing down pay and investing in the use of artificial intelligence in production.

And if an industrial relations struggle benefits from a dose of charisma, then the battle to secure the income of the talent behind a large proportion of the world’s streaming content suddenly has much more of the right ingredient. On Friday, George Clooney became the latest celebrity to back the campaign. “Actors and writers in large numbers have lost their ability to make a living,” the actor said, going on to speak of “an inflection point in our industry”.

The recognisability of many of the faces now taking a stand, from Clooney to Margot Robbie and Brian Cox, compared to their counterparts inside the writers’ rooms, has brought the Hollywood dispute to the top of the international news agenda. Productions involving leading American talent, stalled in many countries ever since work on scripts has been prohibited, will now probably grind to a near standstill. And the actors say they are prepared for a long fight.

Among them is Barbie star Robbie, who has stepped out of promotional events, and Oscar winner Susan Sarandon, who argued this weekend that “the issues of streaming and AI are things that have to be dealt with now”. “We’re in an old contract for a new type of business and it’s just not working for most people,” the actor told reporters in New York.

Sarandon’s words follow a protest move in London on Thursday when the stars of the new Christopher Nolan film, Oppenheimer, walked out of the premiere. Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh left with Matt Damon, whose new production company with Ben Affleck is also set to suffer, he said. The cast had the support of the British director Nolan, who has spoken of the moment being ripe for action. Monday’s red carpet event ahead of the New York premiere of Nolan’s film is also cancelled. “In support of the ongoing SAG strike, the film-makers of Oppenheimer will instead screen the movie to celebrate the crew and craftspeople who contributed to making this film,” said a statement from Universal.

Festivals and fan events are threatened too. Organisers of the Toronto International film festival still hope it will go ahead in early September and have told the BBC: “The impact of this strike on the industry and events like ours cannot be denied. We urge our partners and colleagues to resume an open dialogue.” The Venice festival schedulednext month is also in jeopardy, and San Diego’s Comic-Con could be held without its main attraction – celebrities.

On Friday, more than 160,000 members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (Sag-Aftra) stopped work, joining the 11,500 members of the Writers Guild of America in the biggest strike for more than 60 years. Both writers and actors were negotiating with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers over residuals, the payments made when a show or film is repeated. Streaming services such as Netflix have large audiences because of their big libraries of films and shows and yet they pay much less in residuals than broadcast television.

Actor Fran Drescher, the serving president of Sag-Aftra known for her role in The Nanny, claims responses from studio and streaming bosses so far have been “insulting and disrespectful”.

Her sentiments have been echoed by Cox, the Scottish actor behind Succession’s ruthless Logan Roy. “If our residuals go down, it means our health insurance isn’t going to be met,” he said on Friday. “The streaming services have shot themselves in the foot because they’ve said, ‘We’re going very well on this front.’ And when we called them to task and said, ‘What about our residuals, what about our money?’ everything kind of closes down and … you know, it’s not going to happen.”

Cox also attacked plans to use AI programming to replicate talent. “There would never be an original voice,” he argued, citing the British writer behind Succession, Jesse Armstrong, and Mike White, the creator and sole writer of The White Lotus. “It would be some kind of copy monkey of the show. And that is unacceptable.”

If screen talent is now playing its part to the full, then the tough-talking industry moguls are also getting into character. On Thursday, ahead of the strike, Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger told CNBC that stoppages had come at “the worst time in the world”. “There’s a level of expectation that they have that is just not realistic, and they are adding to a set of challenges that this business is already facing, that is quite frankly, very disruptive,” he said.'

[theyoungturks]

Union representatives for the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) announced they will go on strike after negotiations collapsed. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks. https://shoptyt.com/collections/justice-is-coming Watch TYT LIVE on weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live How to help: Sagaftra.org Entertainmentcommunity.org Actionnetwork.org/fundraising/the-snacklist-support-striking-workers Sagaftrashop.com Read more HERE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2023/07/13/hollywood-writers-actors-strike-sag-aftra/ "Hollywood will effectively shut down after leaders of a union representing nearly all TV and film actors announced Thursday that they will go on strike, joining an ongoing walkout by Hollywood writers that has already brought production of many shows and movies to a halt. During a news conference in Los Angeles on Thursday, union representatives for the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) announced the historic move after contract negotiations with companies such as Netflix, Amazon, Disney and Warner Bros. disintegrated Wednesday." *** The largest online progressive news show in the world. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. Help support our mission and get perks. Membership protects TYT's independence from corporate ownership and allows us to provide free live shows that speak truth to power for people around the world. See Perks: ▶ https://www.youtube.com/TheYoungTurks/join SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ http://www.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks TWITTER: ☞ http://www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM: ☞ http://www.instagram.com/TheYoungTurks TWITCH: ☞ http://www.twitch.com/tyt 👕 Merch: http://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt Unbossed with Nina Turner https://www.youtube.com/unbossedtyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA #TYT #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews 230713__TA01_Actors_Union by The Young Turks

[darkangel1791]

Hollywood actors are going on strike after contract negotiations fail

The entertainment industry is already at a standstill because of a writers strike.

July 13, 2023, 4:12 AM EDT / Updated July 13, 2023, 3:16 PM EDT

By Daniel Arkin

NBC.com

LOS ANGELES — Thousands of Hollywood actors are heading to the picket lines after their labor union and a trade group representing the industry's leading studios failed to reach a deal on a new contract, grinding film and television production to a halt.

The national board of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG-AFTRA, voted unanimously Thursday morning to go on strike, the guild announced at an afternoon news conference.

The picket lines will start to form on Friday.

"What happens here is important because what's happening to us is happening across all fields of labor, by means of when employers make Wall Street and greed their priority and they forget about the essential contributors that make the machine run," SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher said.

The guild’s members, rattled by the economics of the streaming era and the rise of unregulated digital technologies, seek higher base compensation and safeguards around the use of artificial intelligence, among other demands. Hollywood's writers are already striking over similar issues.

In a news release early Thursday, SAG-AFTRA said that, after more than four weeks of bargaining, the trade association that represents major companies such as Disney, Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery “remains unwilling to offer a fair deal on the key issues that are essential" to its members.

Drescher, who starred on the sitcom “The Nanny,” said in that statement her guild “negotiated in good faith,” but “the AMPTP’s responses to the union’s most important proposals have been insulting and disrespectful of our massive contributions to this industry.”

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group representing the studios, said the strike was "certainly not the outcome we hoped for as studios cannot operate without the performers that bring our TV shows and films to life."

"The AMPTP presented a deal that offered historic pay and residual increases, substantially higher caps on pension and health contributions, audition protections, shortened series option periods, and a groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors’ digital likenesses for SAG-AFTRA members," the group said.

"The Union has regrettably chosen a path that will lead to financial hardship for countless thousands of people who depend on the industry," the group added.

The strike will be limited to film and television productions. The walkout will not involve SAG-AFTRA members who work in the news business, such as certain broadcast hosts and announcers.

The announcement comes more than two months after the Writers Guild of America, a union that represents film and television scribes, started striking amid its own dispute with the AMPTP. (The group represents Comcast, the corporation that owns NBCUniversal; some employees of the NBCUniversal News Group are represented by the WGA.)

The writers walkout halted most television production, delayed the filming of some high-profile movies and sent late-night talk shows into reruns. The actors strike will likely force other sets to go dark.

SAG-AFTRA members authorized a strike June 5 by an overwhelming margin: 97.91% of the almost 65,000 members who cast votes. The guild began negotiating with the top studios and streaming services two days later.

The union’s existing contract with the major studios originally expired at 11:59 p.m. PT June 30, but both sides agreed to continue negotiations and extended the talks until midnight on July 12.

SAG-AFTRA has argued that performers have been undermined by the new economics of streaming entertainment and threatened by emerging technologies. 

The guild is seeking increased base compensation for performers, which union leaders say has declined as streaming-first studios pivot away from paying out residuals to talent and inflation takes its toll on the economy in general.

The union’s actors are also alarmed by the threat posed by the unrelated use of AI (such as tools that can make digital replacements for recognizable stars) and the cost of “self-taped auditions” — videos that used to be paid for by casting departments and production offices.

In recent weeks, some in the entertainment business worried that all three major Hollywood guilds — SAG-AFTRA, WGA and the Directors Guild of America, or DGA — would walk off the job simultaneously.

But that will not be the case since the Directors Guild announced in early June it had reached a “truly historic” tentative agreement with the studios.

Daniel Arkin is a national reporter at NBC News.

[swldx]

BBC 0407 7 Jun 2024

12095Khz 0358 7 JUN 2024 - BBC (UNITED KINGDOM) in ENGLISH from TALATA VOLONONDRY. SINPO = 55434. English, dead carrier s/on @0358z then ID@0359z pips and newsday preview. @0401z World News anchored by Chris Berrow. Donald Trump returned to the campaign trail Thursday with a trip to Arizona, his first appearance in a battleground state since he was convicted in a hush money scandal, repeating his critiques of the case against him as politically motivated and calling for his conviction to be overturned on appeal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address US lawmakers in Washington DC on 24 July, congressional leaders announced on Thursday. Republicans and Democrats both invited the prime minister to speak, but the date of his speech was not made official until Thursday. Last month the International Criminal Court's prosecutor applied for arrest warrants against the Israeli leader and his defence minister, Yoav Galant, on charges related to the war. A Samsung Electronics union staged its first walkout on Friday, signalling more assertiveness among workers just as South Korea's most powerful conglomerate races to catch up in chips used in artificial intelligence (AI). Samsung Electronics said there was no impact on production or business activity. The strike fell a day after a public holiday and the number of employees on annual leave was fewer than on the equivalent day last year, the firm said. President Emmanuel Macron said France plans to provide Mirage 2000 warplanes to Ukraine and train Ukrainian pilots this summer. Mr Macron did not specify how many single-engine jet fighters would be provided, by when or under what financial terms. He said France had proposed to train 4,500 Ukrainian soldiers but did not clarify where the soldiers would be trained. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday he could deploy conventional missiles within striking distance of the United States and its European allies if they allowed Ukraine to strike deeper into Russia with long-range Western weapons. Putin, in his first face-to-face meeting with senior editors of international news agencies since the war in Ukraine began, said the West was wrong to assume Russia would never use nuclear weapons, and said the Kremlin's nuclear doctrine should not be taken lightly. At least 150 people, including 35 children, are feared dead in a massacre in a village in central Sudan blamed on the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary group fighting the army. The rivals have been battling over control of the country for more than 13 months. The RSF has not commented on the accusations, but on Thursday boasted of attacking two army positions. The U.S. military said on Thursday it had destroyed eight Houthi drones and two uncrewed surface vessels in the Red Sea in the past 24 hours. The U.S. military's Central Command said its forces had also successfully engaged a drone launched from a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen and that Houthis had launched an anti-ship ballistic missile. There were no reports of damage or injury, it said. The woman who identified herself as the inspiration behind the character Martha Scott in the Netflix hit drama series Baby Reindeer has filed a $170m lawsuit against the streaming giant. In a lawsuit filed on Thursday in the US district court for the central district of California, Fiona Harvey accused Netflix of defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, gross negligence and violations of her right of publicity. @0406z "Newsday" begins. Backyard fence antenna, JRC NRD-535D. 250kW, beamAz 315°, bearing 63°. Received at Plymouth, MN, United States, 15359KM from transmitter at Talata Volonondry. Local time: 2258.

[ecsundance]

Stefanie's Experience at Sundance 2024

Being able to finally attend Sundance in person, I have to say it was a much better experience than attending it all online. Don’t get me wrong, having it online was extremely convenient, but seeing all the films in person is much much cooler. You get to connect with other people face to face and even see actors and directors from different parts of the world. Going into this, I already had a good understanding of what independent films were and are. I have to say, hearing all the directors speak about their films either before or after, has made me understand independent filmmaking a lot better. Being in person, you get to interact with more people and see why each person is at Sundance. Independent film is defined much more than economic, stylistic or thematic terms, but it also brings up questions and ideas that might otherwise be controversial. These films also bring up lots of topics that are not discussed as much as they should be. One example comes from The Mother of All Lies. This film mainly focuses on one grandma who won’t allow pictures inside the house and will not let anyone know why. This film takes place in Morocco where it is considered taboo to talk about the past as people do not want to relieve the pain, but the only way to escape the pain is to talk about it. These films also help a wider audience understand a culture that is different from our own. A good example is the film DiDi. DiDi is a coming of age film about a young Taiwanese-American boy growing up in the US. For many, this is a very different perspective of life in America and it helps us understand people's backgrounds better. Film festivals are also a place for anyone with any sort of interest in film. Some people are aspiring directors, producers, critics, and other people are just film lovers looking for entertainment. I didn’t realize how much of a big deal film festivals are and how many big name sponsors or celebrities show up. With these sponsors at film festivals, there is a greater chance that a film can be picked up by one. Which is all a part of the business. You make a film to tell a story and to get that story to wider audiences, you have to get it bought. Being a filmmaker and getting your films into festivals is a lot harder than I thought, but since going to Sundance, I am very inspired to try on my own. Especially from hearing other directors stories on how they got into film and how long it took them to get into Sundance. 

Now I saw a LOT of films at Sundance and it is very hard to choose a favorite, but my favorite has to be It’s What’s Inside directed by Greg Jardin. It was a great, suspenseful and twisting film. It’s like Freaky Friday meets Guess Who. It has also been acquired by Netflix and I strongly recommend checking it out once it is streaming. I promise you will be hanging onto the edge of your seat, wondering what is going to happen next. My least favorite film has to be Being (the digital griot). It was an animated AI who spoke a poem for close to an hour while dancing. Not only was it very weird, but it also had ambient music playing behind it with calming images to go with it. It almost made me fall asleep. At the end of it’s speech, it asked us to consider how we are oppressed due to the patriarchy and things. I wasn’t really in the mood to be in another one of my Imagine Justice classes, but I went along anyway. At the end, it asked us to come up and share our answers with it. Many people stood up and spilled their feelings. The AI responded with what seemed like a cut and paste response and didn’t actually acknowledge the peoples feelings or concerns. The showing I also went to sparked a walkout, which you can read here. Overall, it was not what I was expecting and I thought the audience was going to be able to ask it questions, so I was a bit thrown off. All in all, I saw a BUNCH of amazing films and the full list is below. I only went to one talk and it was Pushing the Boundaries of Storytelling for a Future that Demands Impact.

Here is a complete list of films I saw at Sundance in order from first watched to last:

How to Have Sex

Love Machina

The Greatest Night in Pop

10 Lives

Stress Positions

Presence

A Different Man

Malu

Episodic Pilot Showcase

Penelope

Me/We

Las Mesias

A Violent Nature

Being (the digital griot)

DiDi

The Mother Of All Lies

It’s What’s Inside

Sasquatch Sunset

A New Kind of Wilderness

Eternal You

Ibelin

Handling the Undead

Layla

Porcelain War

Desire Lines

Animated Shorts

Drago

Matta and Matto

Martyr’s Guidebook

Dona Beatriz Nsimba Vita

Baigal Nuur - Lake Baikal

Larry

27

Documentary Shorts

To Be Invisible

WInding Path

Object 817

The Smallest Power

14 Paintings

Award Winner Shorts

Pisko the Crab Child is in Love

Bug Diner

The Looming

Bob’s Funeral

The Stag

Say Hi After You Die

The Masterpiece

[doamarierose-honoka]

Aquaman swims to new heights on Netflix as the successful DC Extended Universe film hits the top five of the streamer's viewership charts as its sequel, The Lost Kingdom, drowns at the box office.

Per Screen Rant, Aquaman opened at No. 5 on Netflix's Top 10 movies for the week of Jan. 1-7 before dropping to 10th at the time of writing. Aquaman, which stars Jason Momoa as the eponymous Atlantean king, made its Netflix debut on Jan. 1, calling the streamer home after its extended run on HBO's streaming service, Max.

Aquaman is the highest-grossing DCEU film ever made, grossing over $1.13 billion at the global box office despite mixed reviews from critics and fans. The original movie's success was so stunning that even Momoa admitted he couldn't understand how it became so successful amid the negative reception. Aquaman, which also starred Amber Heard, Patrick Wilson, Willem Dafoe and Yahya Abdul Mateen II, holds a respectable 66% critical rating and 72% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, among the best grades for DCEU films.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Won't Be Matching the Original's Success

Unfortunately for DC and Warner Bros., it doesn't appear The Lost Kingdom will come anything close to the success of its predecessor. Working against a budget ranging from $205 million to $215 million, The Lost Kingdom has earned $338 million in global ticket sales since its premiere on Dec. 22 last year. The Aquaman sequel has struggled mightily to attract interest domestically as The Lost Kingdom brought the DCEU to an end after a decade as the transition to the DC Universe under DC Studios co-CEOs, James Gunn and Peter Safran, ramps up.

Bad Press Affected Aquaman 2's Turnout

The Lost Kingdom featured significant changes from Aquaman. There was no return for Dafoe, who starred Nuidis Vulko in the original film, due to scheduling conflicts. Additionally, Heard's role as Mera, Arthur Curry's love interest, was drastically pared down from the first movie as the sequel opted to focus on Arthur and Orm Marius' (Wilson) uneasy alliance against the Black Manta (Mateen). The film has also suffered from constant bad press, ranging from Momoa allegedly wanting Heard fired from the film to test screening walkouts.

The fate of the Aquaman franchise going forward looks bleak considering director James Wan suggested a threequel would depend on fan demand for another movie, a demand that has gradually diminished. Meanwhile, Momoa has been strongly linked to playing a live-action Lobo in the new DCU, a character Momoa has long admired and wanted to portray.

Aquaman is available to stream on Netflix. Meanwhile, The Lost Kingdom is now showing in cinemas across North America.

[hollenka99]

2023 According to my Tumblr Archive

January

Sherlock Holmes finally entered the public domain in his entirety

Speaker of the House shenanigans in the US

Polls became a thing

The Last of Us show began airing

Panic! At The Disco disbanded (despite it only really being one person anyway)

The Tumblr Sexyman Tournament (Tumblr edition) ended with Cecil from WTNV beating Sans

February

The whole site smelled of vanilla extract for a while

I finally got the chance to see Puss In Boots: The Last Wish and fell in love with Death a month after the rest of the internet

A new Professor Layton main series game was announced after the fandom has been surviving on spin offs for far too long

Mcytblr was commiting just so much voter fraud in our own sexyman competition

March

Limited Life started

Gary Lineker called the government out for having facist policies and indirectly caused a massive walkout at the BBC

I discovered The Lion In Winter

QSMP started

Glue trap meme

April

The Mishapocalypse returned for the 10th anniversary

The 'this Barbie is' meme

Across the Spider-verse came out

Tucker Carlson got fired from FOX

The Writers' Guild of America voted to go on strike

May

The Tories got fucked over in local elections by losing over 1000 seats

An elderly couple sat in a church and were given hats

Queen Charlotte aired on Netflix

Generation Loss

June

Across The Spiderverse came out

I broke our coffee table and I'm still laughing about it

The Oceangate submersible

July

I watched Nimona (and read the comic it was based on too)

Puppet History came back for its 6th season

SAG-AFTRA joined in with the WGA's strike

Colleen Ballinger played her ukulele

I shared the Apollo 11 in Real Time website and it became my most popular post of the year which is cool

Ted Nivison and Eddy Burback revealed they went to every Margaritaville in North America

Months of memes finally culminated in Barbenheimer Day

Season 5 of The Dragon Prince

August

Season 2 of Heartstopper

Planet of the Bass

Tumblr got really into Tree Law for a few days

Charles Martinet retired from being Mario's voice

September

Trump's mugshot

Doctor Who released its trailer for the 60th anniversary

PJO did the same for the upcoming Disney+ show

October

Israel found a reason to intensify their genocide against Palestinians

BBC Ghosts returned for its 5th and final season

The WGA were able to get most of the strike conditions met

danandphilgames announced it was coming back after a 5 year hiatus

The clingyduo divorce arc began

Nerdy Prudes Must Die premiered

Secret Life began

Matthew Perry died

November

SAG-AFTRA were able to win their strike too

Suella Braverman finally got the sack

But somehow, David Cameron returned

Zack and Cody had their dinner reservation

Tommy wrote rpf about himself and Tubbo

American Arcadia was released

The first of the Doctor Who 60th anniversary specials said trans rights

December

Henry Kissenger finally fucking died

James Somerton and other plagiarists got absolutely called out

Wilbur Soot decided to drop an album without any warning

The 'they should have been at the club' meme

The Gȁvlebocken got pecked to death

Gonna be honest, the majority of my archive for this month is just. So Much Doctor Who.

[shahananasrin-blog]

[ad_1] The last big strikes reshaped the movie business and fueled the rise of reality TV. The latest walkout likely will help turn established actors into TikTok stars — and vice versa.July 23, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDTStrikers outside the Netflix headquarters in Hollywood this month. (Sean Scheidt for The Washington Post)Comment on this storyCommentThe historic double strike that is paralyzing Hollywood could supercharge the creator economy, the wildly popular market of online influencers and video makers who increasingly rival industry titans for money, attention and cultural power.The fast-growing cast of amateur and professional creators — chefs, comedians, models, musicians and many others — already attracts tens of millions of fans on platforms like YouTube and TikTok without the resources or support of more established mass media.Now, as American film and TV production grinds to a halt, possibly for months, they stand at the center of a major shift that could change entertainment and further blur the lines between traditional and digital fame.Studios and producers are scrambling to recruit creators to help fill a content void, stoking tensions over scab work and changing styles of storytelling. But striking actors and writers are increasingly less reliant on Hollywood, too, experimenting with new ideas on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Twitch in ways that could net them lasting followings — if not steady paychecks — that go beyond traditional industry success.The last Hollywood strike radically reshaped the media landscape by fueling the rise of unscripted content, like documentary series and reality TV shows, that were cheaper to make and easier to mass-produce, such as “Cops” in the late ’80s and “The Celebrity Apprentice” in 2008.The ongoing walkout of tens of thousands of actors and writers, Hollywood’s first double strike in 63 years, could have similarly sweeping ripple effects, by potentially eroding Hollywood’s institutional advantages and elevating a new generation of stars.Creators once saw online virality largely as a way to break into established TV or movie gigs. But some now make so much money selling sponsored content, merchandise or monthly subscriptions that traditional entertainment, with its uncertain paychecks and relevance, can seem like less of a draw.An upcoming series from The Washington Post examining the industry of online influence and its impact on American culture, media and power.Hollywood’s business model has rarely looked so precarious, with box office sales, streamer subscriptions and advertising revenue all trending down. Striking actors and writers have also been enraged over industry practices, from high executive salaries and low residual payments to artificial intelligence techniques they worry could erase their jobs.The changing entertainment sceneThe online creator industry, on the other hand, is exploding. Goldman Sachs Research analysts said in April that the market would likely double in size over the next five years, from $250 billion today, thanks to increased spending from advertisers, viewers and tech platforms eager to capitalize on creators’ virality.Streaming services now beat out cable and broadcast TV for U.S. viewership and account for more than 37 percent of all TV use nationwide, data from market researcher Nielsen show. But the biggest streamer last month wasn’t Netflix or Hulu, the data found; it was YouTube. More than 75 percent of American teenagers told Pew Research Center last year they watch the Google-owned video app every day.Beyond Americans’ media consumption, YouTube and other platforms have lowered the barrier of entry for people wanting to make content themselves, from TikTok’s free video-editing tools to Twitch’s frenetic live streams. That creative competition has led to viral hits and marketing deals, turning what was once an online hobby into, for the lucky few, a million-dollar revenue stream.Studios and streamers will likely try to fill out their release calendars with new deals for influencers’ content if the stoppage stretches out for months, said David Craig, a University of Southern California professor who researches creators and once worked as a film and TV producer.Though some still see creators as “basically brand ambassadors for advertising … they’re in fact a much more broad and complex class of cultural producers that preoccupies vast swaths of people’s attention,” he said. Hollywood is still the king of long-form, premium storytelling, he said, but “if that goes away for the next year, there’s less incentive for people to stay on to see old libraries of content,” and the industry “may start to realize that the creators are the only ones left to do business with.”The worry that creators could spy an opportunity to break into Hollywood’s turf has led some writers and actors to post warnings against undermining the strike on TikTok, where armies of fans have started chastising creators they believe are considering “scabbing” jobs. Franchesca Ramsey, a writer and actress who first gained popularity with her YouTube videos, said in a TikTok video earlier this month that any new deals with studios would be regarded as a betrayal.“If you are a content creator or influencer with any aspirations to become an actor or a writer in the future, now is not the time to take a job because the rest of us are on strike,” she said. Doing so is “considered scabbing, and it will hurt your career.”But many in the industry expect the strike will further nudge traditional entertainers into becoming creators themselves, allowing them to use social media to pursue and help fund independent projects, secure greater ownership of the product and profits, and show sides of their personality and creativity they hope will secure them audiences that outlast any one production.Since the strikes began, Paul Scheer, an actor, writer and director known for his TV roles on “The League” and “Veep,” has invested more time into “FriendZone,” a Twitch channel where he and comedians like Rob Huebel tell jokes and perform skits for a sprawling digital audience.When Scheer launched his first Twitch channel in 2020, after the pandemic froze Hollywood, it proved so successful that he and Huebel hosted a two-episode comedy game show there called “Celebrity Yard Sale” that won a sponsorship deal from Hyundai and became a genuine hit.“We had over a million people watch each day for two hours. That was better than a lot of television,” he said in an interview. “I love that just because we’re in a moment where our industry is on pause, it doesn’t mean that we have to be on pause. We can make our own stuff.”Several actors said they expect their social media accounts could become a lifeline now that traditional work has dried up. Brian Morabito, an actor in New York who has amassed over 600,000 TikTok followers with his comedy videos, said he plans to double down on merchandise sales and increase his output on TikTok and Instagram Reels during the strike.Others are reevaluating which business offers the best rewards. Sarah Pribis, a working actor for more than 15 years in New York who has built a dedicated audience on TikTok, said that while she still receives paid acting gigs, the money she makes as a creator has consistently beaten her acting income for the last six months.“I’m seeing actors right now take to the internet, when they normally don’t make content, and it’s really powerful stuff,” she said. “Hopefully they find: ‘Oh hey, I have a voice here, maybe I can turn this into something that monetizes for me.’”Adam Rose, a TikTok star with more than 4 million followers who’s been a member of the actors’ guild since he was 9, said he and other creators have already turned down gigs promoting TV shows and movies during the strike and found the change of pace refreshing. “I’m able to devote more time to online videos,” he said, “because I’m not on set and I’m not working on-site for auditions and self tapes.”Other creators have called on their followers to see the unions as their allies. Reece Feldman, a TikTok creator who makes videos about TV and movies, said in a video Monday that his 2 million followers should show solidarity for the Writers Guild of America, which he one day hopes to join. “We have so much more in common with the 170,000 plus people currently striking than we do with any of the studio execs who are just hoarding millions,” he said.TikTok and YouTube as alternativesA decade ago, Hollywood regarded the online creator world as a sideshow, and after a disastrous attempt in the early 2010s to jam digital talent into typical acting and hosting roles, the two industries increasingly developed parallel spheres of influence, with their own stars and styles.Pandemic-era changes to entertainment habits and creators’ growing influence, however, have led big Hollywood players to increasingly embrace the power of TikTok and YouTube. Many studios now build buzz for their movies and shows with creator partnerships and companion podcasts, like those HBO sponsored for “Succession” and “Game of Thrones.”In 2021, a year after Netflix told shareholders in a letter that TikTok’s “astounding” growth showed “the fluidity of internet entertainment,” the company launched a short-lived, TikTok-like video feature called “Fast Laughs” and signed a multimillion-dollar deal with one of its biggest creators, Addison Rae. And last year, to drive online buzz, Scott Seiss, a TikToker who went viral for his sendups of an angry Ikea employee, showed up in a trailer for the Universal Pictures horror-comedy “Cocaine Bear.”In an acknowledgment of the blurring lines between Hollywood and the web, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, known as SAG-AFTRA, allowed creators to join in 2021 through what was called the “influencer agreement.”The union recently told its creators that they should reject any work promoting “struck” companies or content and report any new brand-sponsorship deals via an online form. Any nonunion influencers who worked for one of the targeted companies during the strike, it added, would not be admitted as members later on.It’s unclear how many influencers have joined the union, which is negotiating with a studio trade group, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, and not the online platforms where the creators make most of their cash. (The AMPTP represents more than 350 companies, including Amazon, whose founder, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post and whose interim CEO, Patty Stonesifer, is a member of the Amazon board.)But Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director and chief negotiator, said the guild is working to use the strike to recruit more creators into its ranks for both this walkout and what he expects will be coming labor disputes with the giants of technology, including companies like Apple and Amazon, which have interests in both traditional entertainment and the creator economy.Sidney Raskind, a creator known as “Sidneyraz” with 4 million TikTok followers, told influencers in a video on Tuesday that his union membership had helped him get health insurance and a pension plan and encouraged them to consider joining, even if they never wanted to be a traditional actor, because it would help “legitimize this profession in a way that you never thought possible.”“We’re producers, we’re actors, we’re editors, we’re everything,” he said in an interview. “This is a great opportunity for internet influencers to actually be a part of something that’s bigger and better.”Josh Cohen, the co-founder of Tubefilter, a media company focused on the creator economy, said the “us vs. them” mentality pitting Hollywood against digital creators has become less adversarial over the years, with both sides collaborating across different platforms in hopes of building audiences and cachet.Liz Hannah, a prominent screenwriter and film producer, said many in the industry see Hollywood and the creator economy as not mutually exclusive. “One influences the other, and both are serving different purposes,” she said. “I don’t go on TikTok to watch ‘The Bear,’ but I do go on TikTok to watch people talk about ‘The Bear.’”Creators generally offer a very different product from Hollywood, reliant less on highly produced stories than on colorful or inventive slices of life. But the content is nevertheless quite popular because it’s quick, free and easily available. It’s especially captivating for the young audiences the media has long fought to capture: The parental-control app Qustodio, which tracks user screen time, said in a report that children last year averaged nearly two hours a day on TikTok, plus another hour on YouTube.Unlike major studio productions, most creators work by themselves or in small teams, and their funding generally comes in small installments from ad deals, viewers or the platforms themselves. Many operate like independent media companies, planning and making content, tracking audience metrics and negotiating brand deals in hopes of competing in a crowded market.Creators can make a fraction of what similar performers might earn on studio work, and many of them cannot afford to make content full time. Despite efforts in recent years to unionize, creators are generally treated as freelance contractors by tech companies, not entitled to benefits or health care.Many creators burn out from the stress and demands of constant production. The relatively few very successful creators earn their money through paid partnerships with clothing lines, energy drinks and other companies, or through subscription platforms like Patreon and OnlyFans.Strikes at this scale often leave a lasting impact on the industry. The last dual actors and writers walkout in 1960, when the industry’s biggest disrupter was TV, led to a deal negotiated by SAG president Ronald Reagan granting actors payments known as residuals when their movies were licensed for the small screen.The most recent big Hollywood strike, in 2008, poured rocket fuel into the once-niche genre of reality TV — and, in some ways, the creator economy itself. By swapping professional actors for real people, those productions helped lay the groundwork for influencers by showing how even those outside the realm of mainstream celebrity could still capture audiences and command fame.Reality shows will, again, likely benefit from the strike: SAG-AFTRA has said crew members on those productions can keep working because they are governed by a separate contract, known as the Network Television Code, that covers talk shows, game shows, soap operas and other non-primetime TV.But the strikes are in their early days, and it’s unclear how consumer viewing patterns will shift because today’s streaming-media landscape is quite different from the linear model that once dominated American screens.The strikes also won’t zero out new content. Streamers have produced so many new movies and TV shows that have yet to be released, and they can re-market and reintroduce older titles to help fill the void. Productions filmed overseas, like Netflix’s hit “Squid Game” and HBO’s “House of the Dragon,” also won’t be stopped by the U.S.-based strike.An exceptionally long strike, or boredom with the status quo, could further nudge viewers onto their phones. But Jonathan Handel, an entertainment and technology lawyer who has represented the actors’ guild, said he suspects concerns about the death of old-school TV and film are greatly exaggerated.He thinks the creator economy, like the industry for video games, another dominant entertainment medium, won’t supplant Hollywood, but instead will fuel a new era of crossover successes, like the hit game “The Last of Us” that became a hit HBO show.Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s chief negotiator, said the guild sees the Hollywood and creator communities as not so different, and he expects the gap will only narrow.“The talent and skill that’s required to be successful as a content creator is greater than ever,” he said in an interview. “Whether people are consuming content in more traditional forms or in newer formats, the key is that unique element of human creativity. Each [creative] is doing something special, whether it’s distributed by YouTube, TikTok, Reels or in a movie.”Gift this articleGift Article [ad_2]

[newstodayjournal]

Labor Day Looms as Crisis Point in Hollywood Stalemate

In May, when 11,500 movie and television writers went on strike, Hollywood companies like Netflix, NBCUniversal and Disney reacted with what amounted to a shrug. The walkout wasn’t great, but executives had expected it for months. They could ride it out. The angry response from Hollywood’s corporate ranks when actors went out on Friday was dramatically different. What began as an inconvenience…

[denimbex1986]

'Oliver Stone said Friday he was shocked to hear that the stars of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer had walked out of its London premiere the day before as SAG-AFTRA officially declared strike action.

“I know several producers are opening movies, like Oppenheimer. Chuck Roven, he was in London. I heard it was going to be cancelled,” said Stone, when asked for his view on the strike.

“I don’t know if it went ahead but all the actors left. That was shocking that they really meant business and cut off right away all the promotion, which is big.”

Commenting on the ongoing 11-week WGA strike, Stone suggested the roots of the current industrial action lie in the deal brokered to end the five-month writers strike in 1988.

“There was a basic miscarriage of justice way back when, when Brian Walton was the head of the WGA, when we gave in. I wasn’t on the front line, but I supported that strike,” said Stone.

“We gave in to the producers. They got away with murder on one of these deals where all that DVD money was deferred. They claimed they were in the hole, in the red, and that they had to get their money back from DVD.

“I forgot what the percentage was, but they took something like the first 75% off the top. The DVD business was huge, especially for my films. So, the gross was never divided fairly.”

Stone said this trend had continued with residuals and profits.

“Not so much residuals, as profits really. Residuals are important for some of the writers who don’t make as much money. But people who do make money, they don’t touch the profits from the film, the studio does,” he said.

“The studio is always telling you that they’re losing money, but they always find a way to make a new level of profit for 10, 15 years. … It’s that perpetual industrial problem with a capitalist group that pays its executives more and more money and screws the average writer.”

Looking back over past industrial action, Stone recalled how the 2007 writers strike initially led to the postponement of his 1968 My Lai massacre drama Pinkville, and then resulted in it being cancelled for good.

“We had three weeks to go and it got cancelled. We got hurt,” he said.

Stone said he doubted there would be a quick or easy resolution to the current writer and actor disputes.

“I don’t think it will be wrapped up quickly. Because well, I don’t understand the economics of Netflix and these new guys, but it’s the same old bullsh*t. You know they’re making money and they always say they’re losing money. It’s the classic conflict that goes back to the 1880s in America.”

Stone was talking to Deadline at the Jerusalem Film Festival, where he showed his 2022 documentary Nuclear Now, arguing the case for nuclear power as the only viable way to tackle climate change.

Based on the book A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow, the work premiered at Venice last year.

The work is a passion project for Stone, who says he was inspired to make the film by his fear of climate change.

“I’m not a science expert and I have no kinship with nuclear power. On the contrary, you could say I was a mild believer in the Jane Fonda-Ralph Nader concept of the 1980s that nuclear power was dangerous,” said the director, who also took co-writing credits with U.S. scientist Joshua Goldstein.

“But it’s clear to me from my travels all over the world, that it’s getting hotter, and hotter, and hotter. We were in Italy, two, three days ago, and they said it was hottest day on record or something.”

Stone was also honored with a lifetime achievement award from the Jerusalem Film Festival at the opening ceremony Thursday evening alongside Helen Mirren and Belgian directorial duo Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne.

The director last spent extensive time in the country in 2002 at the height of Second Intifada to make his documentary Persona Non Grata, in which he interviewed Israeli leaders Benjamin Netanyahu, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon as well as the Palestinian Al Aqsa Brigade on the Middle East conflict.

Two decades on, he suggested the situation is unchanged.

“It’s a repetitive cycle. I’ve been here several times. I planted an olive tree for peace here in the ’90s with my then-partner Arnon Milchan and came back in 2002 for Persona Non Grata. … I don’t see a difference. It’s just worse. Like it’s getting hotter. It’s just getting more and more choked.”'

[nbmsports]

In Hollywood, the Strikes Are Just Part of the Problem

Existential hand-wringing has always been part of Hollywood’s personality. But the crisis in which the entertainment capital now finds itself is different.Instead of one unwelcome disruption to face — the VCR boom of the 1980s, for instance — or even overlapping ones (streaming, the pandemic), the movie and television business is being buffeted on a dizzying number of fronts. And no one seems to have any solutions.On Friday, roughly 160,000 unionized actors went on strike for the first time in 43 years, saying they were fed up with exorbitant pay for entertainment moguls and worried about not receiving a fair share of the spoils of a streaming-dominated future. They joined 11,500 already striking screenwriters, who walked out in May over similar concerns, including the threat of artificial intelligence. Actors and writers had not been on strike at the same time since 1960.“The industry that we once knew — when I did ‘The Nanny’ — everybody was part of the gravy train,” Fran Drescher, the former sitcom star and the president of the actors’ union, said while announcing the walkout. “Now it’s a walled-in vacuum.”At the same time, Hollywood’s two traditional businesses, the box office and television channels, are both badly broken.This was the year when moviegoing was finally supposed to bounce back from the pandemic, which closed many theaters for months on end. At last, cinemas would reclaim a position of cultural urgency.But ticket sales in the United States and Canada for the year to date (about $4.9 billion) are down 21 percent from the same period in 2019, according to Comscore, which compiles box office data. Blips of hope, including strong sales for “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” have been blotted out by disappointing results for expensive films like “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” “Elemental,” “The Flash,” “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” and, to a lesser extent, “The Little Mermaid” and “Fast X.”The number of movie tickets sold globally may reach 7.2 billion in 2027, according to a recent report from the accounting firm PwC. Attendance totaled 7.9 billion in 2019.It’s a slowly dying business, but it’s at least better than a quickly dying one. Fewer than 50 million homes will pay for cable or satellite television by 2027, down from 64 million today and 100 million seven years ago, according to PwC. When it comes to traditional television, “the world has forever changed for the worse,” Michael Nathanson, an analyst at SVB MoffettNathanson, wrote in a note to clients on Thursday.Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount Global and WarnerBros. Discovery have relied for decades on television channels for fat profit growth. The end of that era has resulted in stock-price malaise. Disney shares have fallen 55 percent from their peak in March 2021. Paramount Global, which owns channels like MTV and CBS, has experienced an 83 percent decline over the same period.On Thursday, Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, put the sale of the company’s “noncore” channels, including ABC and FX, on the table. He called the decline in traditional television “a reality we have to come to grips with.”In other words, it’s over.And then there is streaming. For a time, Wall Street was mesmerized by the subscriber-siphoning potential of services like Disney+, Max, Hulu, Paramount+ and Peacock, so the big Hollywood companies poured money into building online viewing platforms. Netflix was conquering the world. Amazon had arrived in Hollywood determined to make inroads, as had the ultra-deep-pocketed Apple. If the older entertainment companies wanted to remain competitive — not to mention relevant — there was only one direction to run.“You now have, really in control, tech companies who haven’t a care or clue, so to speak, about the entertainment business — it’s not a pejorative, it’s just the reality,” Barry Diller, the media veteran, said by phone this past week, referring to Amazon and Apple.“For each of these companies,” he added, “their minor business, not their major business, is entertainment. And yet, because of their size and influence, their minor interests are paramount in making any decisions about the future.”A little over a year ago, Netflix reported a subscriber loss for the first time in a decade, and Wall Street’s interest swiveled. Forget subscribers. Now we care about profits — at least when it comes to the old-line companies, because their traditional businesses (box office and channels) are in trouble.To make services like Disney+, Paramount+ and Max (formerly HBO Max) profitable, their parent companies have slashed billions of dollars in costs and eliminated more than 10,000 jobs. Studio executives also put the brakes on ordering new television series last year to rein in costs.WarnerBros. Discovery has said its streaming business, anchored by Max, will be profitable in 2023. Disney has promised profitability by September 2024, while Paramount had not forecast a date, except to say peak losses will occur this year, according to Rich Greenfield, a founder of the LightShed Partners research firm.Giving in to union demands, which would threaten streaming profitability anew, is not something the companies will do without a fight.“In the short term, there will be pain,” said Tara Kole, a founding partner of JSSK, an entertainment law firm that counts Emma Stone, Adam McKay and Halle Berry as clients. “A lot of pain.”Every indication points to a long and destructive standoff. Agents who have worked in show business for 40 years said the anger surging through Hollywood exceeded anything they had ever seen.“Straight out of ‘Les Miz’” was how one longtime executive described the high-drama, us-against-them mood in a text to a reporter. Photos circulating online from this past week’s Allen & Company Sun Valley media conference, the annual “billionaires’ summer camp” attended by Hollywood’s haves, inflamed the situation.On a Paramount Pictures picket line on Friday, Ms. Drescher attacked Mr. Iger, something few people in Hollywood would dare to do without the cloak of anonymity. She criticized his pay package (his performance-based contract allows for up to $27 million annually, including stock awards, which is middle of the road for entertainment chief executives) and likened him and other Hollywood moguls to “land barons of a medieval time.”“It’s so obvious that he has no clue as to what is really happening on the ground,” she added. Mr. Iger had told CNBC on Thursday that the demands by the two unions were “just not realistic.”In the coming weeks, studios will probably cancel lucrative long-term deals with writers (and some actor-producers) by virtue of the force majeure clause in their contracts, which kick in on the 60th or 90th day of a strike, depending on how the agreements are structured. The force majeure clause states that when unforeseeable circumstances prevent someone from fulfilling a contract, the studios can cancel the deal without paying a penalty.Eventually, contracts with the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA, as the actors’ union is known, will be hammered out.The deeper business challenges will remain.Nicole Sperling contributed reporting. Source link Read the full article