Speaker 1: I can't hear you.
Speaker 2: What do we want?
Speaker 3: Track?
Speaker 2: When we want it? That is the sound of striking
Speaker 2: writers and actors. Our interns in New York City went
Speaker 2: out to ask some of them why they're on strike,
Speaker 2: what do they want? I'm a writer on strike. We
Speaker 2: are fighting for better contracts and better residuals for the
Speaker 2: writers and the actors. Now I'm here to fight for
Speaker 2: our equal for our pay that we should be getting,
Speaker 2: and so he may I out of writing rooms and
Speaker 2: out of offscreen.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of people might be under the
Speaker 4: impression that the television and movie writers are all millionaires
Speaker 4: and living in mansions.
Speaker 3: But we're not.
Speaker 5: We're middle class.
Speaker 4: People trying to pay uh our kids' tuitions, and pay
Speaker 4: our rent and pay our grocery bills, and it's been
Speaker 4: increasingly more challenging and difficult to do that.
Speaker 5: I want to see a fair deal as soon as possible.
Speaker 5: It is absolutely appalling that they are not negotiating right now.
Speaker 5: I understand they had the sad contract to go through,
Speaker 5: the DJ contract to go through the fact the fact
Speaker 5: that they are not around the table right now is
Speaker 5: utterly disgusting.
Speaker 2: If that last voice sounds familiar, it's because it's comedian
Speaker 2: John Oliver. He's the host of HBO's Last Week Tonight.
Speaker 2: That's one of the many shows that's gone dark for
Speaker 2: the strake. He was joining a picket line that has
Speaker 2: shown no signs of backing down. I'm West Kasova today
Speaker 2: on the Big Take. How long until Hollywood is back
Speaker 2: on set? Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw is back on the show
Speaker 2: to try to answer that question. Hey, Lucas, good to
Speaker 2: talk to you again.
Speaker 1: Great to be back.
Speaker 2: So this writer strike has been going on for a
Speaker 2: long time. Are you surprised how long it's been going No.
Speaker 1: Back in April, when the negotiations were nearing the point
Speaker 1: of breaking down, I predicted and just felt that it
Speaker 1: would last until October. It was just evident from talking
Speaker 1: to people on both sides as well as sort of
Speaker 1: third parties you know, agents, lawyers, intermediaries, representatives, that neither
Speaker 1: side was close. The negotiations were not particularly intense. It
Speaker 1: didn't seem like either side was really trying to make
Speaker 1: a deal. Though I don't think either sid wanted a strike.
Speaker 1: It began to feel inevitable, and honestly, it was described
Speaker 1: as inevitable even going back to last year. I think
Speaker 1: what has surprised people a little bit is nobody was
Speaker 1: sure what would happen that the actors would strike. And
Speaker 1: then also I think the tone, the tone of the
Speaker 1: strike has surprised some people, just because the guild has become,
Speaker 1: you know, very much like a normal labor union, kind
Speaker 1: of full of political activists, and so I think that's
Speaker 1: caught some of the studios off guard.
Speaker 2: You've called the strike Hollywood's greatest labor dispute in six decades.
Speaker 2: Has there been any movement in what the writers are demanding,
Speaker 2: what the studios want, versus kind of like what they
Speaker 2: first expected.
Speaker 1: There hasn't been huge movement. You know, when the writers
Speaker 1: first went on strike, they posted on social media sort
Speaker 1: of their proposals and what the studio said in response,
Speaker 1: and something sort of similar happened with the actors. The
Speaker 1: tricky part in this is there are some areas on
Speaker 1: which I think both sides sort of agree with what
Speaker 1: is on the table right, Like, one of the biggest
Speaker 1: disputes is writers would like there to be a minimum
Speaker 1: number of them who are in the writer's room working
Speaker 1: on the scripts for the show, which is something that
Speaker 1: studios are not going to agree to and they acknowledge
Speaker 1: that the writers have asked for it, and acknowledge that
Speaker 1: they've basically said no.
Speaker 2: Can you explain why that's so important for the writers?
Speaker 2: Like being in the room, it's.
Speaker 1: The minimum part that's actually most important to them, because
Speaker 1: what has happened in streaming is that you have fewer
Speaker 1: episodes per season. You tend to have shorter shows in general,
Speaker 1: and that can be a reason to have fewer people
Speaker 1: in the room. There have also been some high profile
Speaker 1: examples of shows that are basically entirely written by one person.
Speaker 1: Writing has historically been as as Hollywood is as a
Speaker 1: lot of industries are sort of a job of apprenticeship
Speaker 1: where you sort of rise through the ranks and there's
Speaker 1: this gradual process whereby you get more and more senior,
Speaker 1: you get paid more and more money, and also you
Speaker 1: learn more skills. Streaming has upset this process a little
Speaker 1: bit one because in some cases the rooms are smaller.
Speaker 1: Also because of the way that they're shot. Oftentimes writers
Speaker 1: are no longer on set and that's something that they
Speaker 1: care about. And so a big aspect of this labor
Speaker 1: dispute has been writers and talent sort of wanting to
Speaker 1: go back to the way things were, and a lot
Speaker 1: of these media companies being like, there's no going backwards,
Speaker 1: where you know, this is the new reality. That's a
Speaker 1: big reason why it's been so hard to find common
Speaker 1: ground is because they're sort of fighting over really fundamental
Speaker 1: parts of the business. Money is obviously the most important
Speaker 1: thing in this dispute, but there are all these other
Speaker 1: factors that are kind of more systemic.
Speaker 2: So why has money become such a big problem. Is
Speaker 2: it that shows just aren't as profitable as they once were.
Speaker 1: Well, the film and television industry, and in particular the
Speaker 1: television industry, is going through sort of a massive generational
Speaker 1: shift where for the past many decades, TV meant channels
Speaker 1: delivered via cable and satellite providers that were live and
Speaker 1: that all had ads, and it was a system that
Speaker 1: grew over time. Obviously, we went from having a couple
Speaker 1: of broadcast networks having this full cable system, but it
Speaker 1: was still TV and streaming as upset that business model.
Speaker 1: You know, Cable TV was hugely profitable for all these
Speaker 1: media companies, and it was very lucrative as a result
Speaker 1: for many writers because you had a show that started
Speaker 1: on CBS or NBC, and then if you had the
Speaker 1: right show, it got syndicated, and there were all sorts
Speaker 1: of protections in place, and just streaming has upset many
Speaker 1: of those conventions. Now there's more shows being made than
Speaker 1: ever before. You know, there are more jobs, more people working.
Speaker 1: The paydays for people at the top can still be
Speaker 1: incredibly lucrative, and so that seems like a very good thing.
Speaker 1: It seems like people wouldn't be upset. But because cable
Speaker 1: TV is collapsing, you have a lot of pressure on
Speaker 1: costs in some of these places where folks are getting
Speaker 1: paid a little bit less because the conventions of streaming
Speaker 1: are different. There's more inequality, more haves and have nots to.
Speaker 1: People at the top are still getting paid quite a bit,
Speaker 1: but the protections for the people in the middle and
Speaker 1: lower classes are not the same. And also we're just
Speaker 1: we're sort of in the middle of this transition, and
Speaker 1: so there are folks who are upset and feel that
Speaker 1: they're not getting paid enough and they want certain protections.
Speaker 1: But it really boils down to like streaming has changed
Speaker 1: the economics of the business, and so the unions are
Speaker 1: just trying to make sure that they capture enough of
Speaker 1: that upside.
Speaker 2: And one of the results of these cost pressures that
Speaker 2: you write about is something kind of unexpected, and that's
Speaker 2: this concern among the writers that artificial intelligence is more
Speaker 2: and more coming for their jobs.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, that was not a subject that I
Speaker 1: think either studios or writers or actors anticipated would be
Speaker 1: a major part of this labor dispute six months ago.
Speaker 1: But much as we as a society have started talking
Speaker 1: about artificial intelligence a lot more, many industries have started
Speaker 1: talking about it, it has come to Hollywood as well, and
Speaker 1: it's really an existential question for a lot of these folks.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: I think it's easy for some of us to say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: of course you're going to like automate a manufacturing job
Speaker 1: in a factory. But when it's like, oh, you're going
Speaker 1: to replace a writer or an actor with a computer
Speaker 1: algorithm or a large language model, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: feels different. It's like a high skilled job, and so
Speaker 1: lawyers and journalists and everybody freaks out. But you know,
Speaker 1: I think some of the concerns over artificial intelligence are
Speaker 1: probably a little overblown or at least premature. You know,
Speaker 1: nobody thinks that you're going to have a chat shept
Speaker 1: write a script right now, right Like, no studio chief
Speaker 1: or executive that I talk to says that they're even
Speaker 1: contemplating that. But we are already starting to see parts
Speaker 1: of the production ecosystem where AI is being used, and
Speaker 1: that's very scary for people and they want protections against it,
Speaker 1: which I think is totally rational.
Speaker 2: So what do the writers tell you about what their
Speaker 2: concerns are. If no one really thinks that, like you say,
Speaker 2: chat GBT is going to write a script, what do
Speaker 2: they fear?
Speaker 1: Well, I think there are some writers who fear that,
Speaker 1: or at least think you know, we were talking about
Speaker 1: the minimum number of writers in a writer's room. There's
Speaker 1: a concern that if you can have chat shept come
Speaker 1: up with an idea or work on certain things, maybe
Speaker 1: the number of writers in the room goes from six
Speaker 1: to four. There is concern that if studios use chat
Speaker 1: GPT to come up with an idea, maybe not write
Speaker 1: the thing, but like come up with basically a crappy
Speaker 1: first draft. Writers often get paid less when something is
Speaker 1: adapted as opposed to original, and so they would get
Speaker 1: paid less if you use chat GPT to do that
Speaker 1: there are ways in which it is something of a threat.
Speaker 1: I just don't think that it's going to fully replace them.
Speaker 1: And the other one to keep in mind, of course,
Speaker 1: is you know, these models learn how to write or
Speaker 1: spit out images because they get trained on things, and
Speaker 1: so they can get trained on a bunch of scripts.
Speaker 1: If they don't get trained on scripts, they don't know
Speaker 1: how to write a script. And so writers want to
Speaker 1: make sure. We're asking studios to sort of protect this IP.
Speaker 1: Now that's tricky because in most cases writers don't own
Speaker 1: the script. The studio owns the script, and so one
Speaker 1: of the things that they have to negotiate, and I
Speaker 1: think they should be aligned on this is the studios
Speaker 1: want to be sure that these companies are paying them
Speaker 1: or licensing them so that models don't get trained on
Speaker 1: all these scripts for free and know one benefits from it.
Speaker 2: Even though these models aren't being used right now to
Speaker 2: write scripts, you do write that Hollywood does use AI
Speaker 2: in a whole bunch of different ways.
Speaker 1: The primary ways that AI is being used right now,
Speaker 1: I would say relate to kind of post production, which
Speaker 1: is what happens after you're on set and shoot the project,
Speaker 1: so you can use AI to you know, affect someone
Speaker 1: the way someone's mouth moves or speech. So for example,
Speaker 1: you know, I interviewed a director who also co founded
Speaker 1: an AI company, and they made a movie where they
Speaker 1: needed to do reshoots, and one of the things that
Speaker 1: they wanted to do was they wanted the movie to
Speaker 1: get a PG thirteen rating instead of an R rating,
Speaker 1: and they used the F word too much in it,
Speaker 1: so they went back in and using AI changed a
Speaker 1: bunch of the F word into a different, more polite
Speaker 1: F word. I'm not sure I'm allowed to curse on
Speaker 1: this podcast, so I'm not going to use the difference,
Speaker 1: and that made them go from an ART rating to
Speaker 1: a PG thirteen rating, and the reshoots in general, using
Speaker 1: AI to do it save them a bunch of money
Speaker 1: because maybe you don't have to go back to set
Speaker 1: if you have captured someone's performance in one place and
Speaker 1: can move them or change what they're saying. There's I
Speaker 1: think some optimism, but also some concern in terms of
Speaker 1: job replacement, that it could be used to replace a
Speaker 1: lot of dubbing. For example, when you have voice actors
Speaker 1: come in and perform a project or perform an actor's
Speaker 1: dialogue in another language. That's something where the AI is
Speaker 1: maybe not quite good enough to do it yet, but
Speaker 1: they're definitely testing it out and seeing if we can
Speaker 1: get there.
Speaker 2: But you also write just about that that they're now
Speaker 2: able to make it look like the lips of the
Speaker 2: actors are actually speaking that language. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, one of the problems with dubbing is that the
Speaker 1: movement of the lips do not tend to match the words,
Speaker 1: and so at least these AI companies say they can
Speaker 1: make the lips more accurately match the words. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it happen in a bunch of cases, and my
Speaker 1: guess is that it's still imperfect, but I could see
Speaker 1: a world in which they can make those match and
Speaker 1: sync up better.
Speaker 2: After the break? Why actors are so afraid of AI? So, Lucas,
Speaker 2: we've most have been talking about the writers, but as
Speaker 2: you said, at the beginning, people didn't expect the actors
Speaker 2: to join in. How has that changed the nature of
Speaker 2: the strike.
Speaker 1: Pu's made it a lot louder, that's for sure. The actors'
Speaker 1: union is much larger than the writers' union. They are
Speaker 1: all performers, and so they are you know, there were
Speaker 1: the writers were already on the picket lines outside of
Speaker 1: studios every day, protesting, marching, chanting, and now you've got
Speaker 1: hundreds thousands of actors who've joined them in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: and New York. Also, actors obviously have a very big following,
Speaker 1: and so they can bring more public attention to it
Speaker 1: as far as the business, as far as what people see.
Speaker 1: I mean, it means actors who are striking cannot promote projects,
Speaker 1: and so you have movies come out that actors cannot.
Speaker 1: You're not going to go on the morning show, they're
Speaker 1: not going to be on social media. It's led studios
Speaker 1: to delay some movies in part because they're at stars
Speaker 1: can't promote it, or in some cases because some of
Speaker 1: the work on it wasn't done. You know, the writer's work,
Speaker 1: especially on movies is frontloaded the beginning, but the actors
Speaker 1: are there in the middle of production and then also
Speaker 1: often in post production doing something called adr different things
Speaker 1: to kind of clean up some of the speech in
Speaker 1: it in other aspects of the project. And so the
Speaker 1: actors strike has had i'd say i will have a
Speaker 1: more immediate impact on what gets released.
Speaker 2: And the actors too have voiced their own concerns about
Speaker 2: AI and how their own likenesses could be used without
Speaker 2: them participating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because studios want to and many already do this
Speaker 1: thing where they like, they kind of scan an actor,
Speaker 1: so they essentially have a digital replica of them that
Speaker 1: they can use. You know, Let's say the actor dies
Speaker 1: during the production of a movie, as Paul Walker did
Speaker 1: during one of the Fast and Furious movies, they can,
Speaker 1: you know, find a way to replicate them. When that
Speaker 1: happened with Paul Walker, Universal had to use Paul Walker's
Speaker 1: brother as like a virtual stand in for him. Studios
Speaker 1: already use some of this technology to sort of adjust ages.
Speaker 1: You know, in the new Indiana Jones movie Harrison Ford,
Speaker 1: they make him look younger.
Speaker 3: Methodology use footage me from forty years ago that was
Speaker 3: in the vaults of Lucasfilm.
Speaker 2: It's very very effective.
Speaker 1: There's a movie coming out next year with Tom Hanks
Speaker 1: where they make them look both older and younger. Now
Speaker 1: that all happens with the actors consent, and that's one
Speaker 1: of the big things that the actors are concerned about
Speaker 1: is they're not opposed to the use of artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1: They just want to make sure that studios ask for
Speaker 1: their consent and compensate them when they are used, and
Speaker 1: there are some concerns about how the studios might sort
Speaker 1: of alter their performance or alter what they say, or
Speaker 1: use generative AI, in which case maybe they'd use a
Speaker 1: bunch of actress performances to create like a synthetic character,
Speaker 1: like someone who's purely virtual but based on someone else's being.
Speaker 2: I got to pose you for a second and ask
Speaker 2: about this scanning of actors. So if you're in a
Speaker 2: movie now, they actually take a scan of your body
Speaker 2: to recreate it.
Speaker 1: My understanding is that a lot of studios with certain
Speaker 1: projects will basically take a digital scan of an actor
Speaker 1: so that they sort of have that in the bank
Speaker 1: that they can use because you you know, think about
Speaker 1: how much CGI is already used. You might want to
Speaker 1: slightly adjust someone's body in that frame.
Speaker 2: I guess another aspect too, is that now the actors
Speaker 2: are trying to have these clauses in their contracts about
Speaker 2: how their likenesses can be used in the future.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, look, a lot of people believe that
Speaker 1: there's an existing right to publicity in certain use of name,
Speaker 1: image and likeness, which is a term that we talk
Speaker 1: about a lot and say college sports and those athletes
Speaker 1: right now is that it pertains to video games. But yeah,
Speaker 1: actors are, especially with the proliferation of AI models and tools,
Speaker 1: are very concerned with ensuring that they have the right
Speaker 1: over what they say and what they do in movies.
Speaker 1: You know, there are examples now going back many years.
Speaker 1: I think I heard about one that was like twenty
Speaker 1: years ago where they created a tear an actor's face
Speaker 1: that they where they didn't actually cry during the production,
Speaker 1: and this was like a huge scandal. I mean, these
Speaker 1: are actors. They're very sensitive to how they're portrayed. And obviously,
Speaker 1: in the case of any movie, the directors or the
Speaker 1: ultimate arbiter, but the actor doesn't want them to be
Speaker 1: able to kind of really change their performance in a
Speaker 1: significant way without their approval.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I guess, like you say, it's all about permissions.
Speaker 2: I think I read recently that James Earl Jones has
Speaker 2: given permission for him to be Darth Vader long after
Speaker 2: he's no longer on the earth.
Speaker 1: Yes, James Earl Jones will forever be Darth Vader.
Speaker 3: You do not get the aligned or in polties. You
Speaker 3: have only begun to discover your power join me and
Speaker 3: I will compete.
Speaker 1: That's an example to me of the upside in AI. Now,
Speaker 1: maybe it's kind of bad because you know, going forward,
Speaker 1: that means that you're not gonna it will limit a
Speaker 1: job for someone else, because you're essentially gonna have a
Speaker 1: dead person in this job forever. But he's known for
Speaker 1: that role. I think people would feel weird if there
Speaker 1: were a different voice in Darth Vader, and you know,
Speaker 1: and that's a lot of money, presumably for him and
Speaker 1: for his family. I will I would be curious how
Speaker 1: it is, because I was actually recently watching as a
Speaker 1: documentary about the basketball player Wilt Chamberlain on Showtime and
Speaker 1: they recreate his voice and have him talk throughout the
Speaker 1: documentary using his voice. And weirdly enough, I know Wilt
Speaker 1: Chamberlain because my dad wrote a book about him, and
Speaker 1: that voice is not what Wilt sounded like.
Speaker 2: My guess is, you have certain preconceptions about me.
Speaker 3: My guess is too.
Speaker 1: That you're wrong, and so I assume that's something that
Speaker 1: they need to keep working on and improve.
Speaker 2: You mentioned this new movie coming out with Tom Hanks
Speaker 2: called Here, and you had written that this is going
Speaker 2: to be a test case for the merits of AI
Speaker 2: technology and movies. Can you tell us more about this movie?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's directed by Robert Simchis, one of the most
Speaker 1: famous directors in modern Hollywood. He and Tom Hanks worked
Speaker 1: together on the movie Castaway, among others. And it's a
Speaker 1: movie that all takes place in one location over many generations,
Speaker 1: and so you're going to see sort of the same
Speaker 1: performers at a bunch of different ages. And Robert Semechis
Speaker 1: and the company that produced the movie worked with this
Speaker 1: company called Metaphysic to essentially dage and age up Tom
Speaker 1: Hanks in it. And Metaphysic is a pretty interesting company
Speaker 1: that sort of started in a lot of ways with
Speaker 1: this deep fake of the actor Tom Cruise. You know,
Speaker 1: there's this actor named Miles Fisher who looks a lot
Speaker 1: like Tom Cruise, and he worked with a technologist to
Speaker 1: create a deep fake whereby their sort of rendered Tom
Speaker 1: Cruise's face onto him, and he performed as Tom Cruise
Speaker 1: doing all sorts of things, you know, licking a lollipop,
Speaker 1: just living day to day life. And many of these
Speaker 1: clips went viral on social media and that led them
Speaker 1: to partner with a few other people and build a
Speaker 1: whole company within the world of AI. I think most
Speaker 1: people agree that AI is sort of a tool, you know,
Speaker 1: not a great replacement. But there are some people who
Speaker 1: think that it's going to make adjustments to film and
Speaker 1: television and society sort of on the margins or in
Speaker 1: ways that eventually we will deem sort of imperceptible. You know,
Speaker 1: we don't like think necessarily about how much CGI is
Speaker 1: in every movie. There are other people who think that
Speaker 1: AI is going to change absolutely everything, and I would
Speaker 1: say metaphysic. At least one of the CEO of it,
Speaker 1: Tom Graham, falls into that camp. He told me that
Speaker 1: in ten years, all photo and video will be AI generated.
Speaker 1: Now I'm personally quite skeptical of that, but you know,
Speaker 1: you got to give him credit for being a true believer.
Speaker 2: When we come back, if this strike keeps going, will
Speaker 2: there be anything new to watch? Our interns went out
Speaker 2: and asked people in New York City how they'd feel
Speaker 2: if an AI bot was writing the script to their
Speaker 2: favorite show. I would be open to that.
Speaker 4: I think it would make it more creative, It would
Speaker 4: put a spin that most people Publab would just naturally
Speaker 4: think of.
Speaker 3: No, I'm real scared about that really scared about that.
Speaker 2: No, no way, no way.
Speaker 3: Humans are so creative and diverse.
Speaker 5: I would still need to know what they think or
Speaker 5: how they see something, you know, how they see other
Speaker 5: humans interact with each other on screen.
Speaker 2: That will be a game changer for just like the
Speaker 2: industry in general.
Speaker 1: I think everybody would just look at it differently.
Speaker 2: I guess I think.
Speaker 3: That it could be a good thing, it could be
Speaker 3: a bad thing.
Speaker 2: So we're now months into this strike. We've got writers,
Speaker 2: we've got actors. You said earlier that no one was
Speaker 2: showing any signs of wanting to compromise. How long do
Speaker 2: you think this goes before we start to see some
Speaker 2: kind of progress.
Speaker 1: I'm sticking with there will be progress in the fall. Normally,
Speaker 1: when you have a labor dispute, you think the side
Speaker 1: sort of want to resolve it as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1: Hollywood fits in this weird bucket where you hear things like, well,
Speaker 1: nobody's going to want to work in August, so they're
Speaker 1: not going to resolve it then, or if they don't
Speaker 1: resolve it in September and October, nobody's gonna want to
Speaker 1: work over the holiday, so it'll kick into next year,
Speaker 1: which is just absurd, but it speaks to the fact
Speaker 1: that one a lot of the members of these unions.
Speaker 1: You either have a very slim number of the people
Speaker 1: at the top who make so much money they don't
Speaker 1: care that much, or you have the large, massive people
Speaker 1: who for the most part have other jobs. Because Hollywood
Speaker 1: has a lot of sort of gig workers, right like,
Speaker 1: you're on set or you have a gig, but then
Speaker 1: you're not for a while, and so you need another
Speaker 1: way to pay the bills. And then these studios, which
Speaker 1: certainly feel the pressure, but a lot of them have
Speaker 1: a bunch of programming stored up. A lot of them
Speaker 1: have contracts with PayTV distributors that mean that they'll get
Speaker 1: paid whether there's new programming or reruns. They have deep libraries.
Speaker 1: So I'm hoping for progress in the fall, just because
Speaker 1: if there's not some progress in the fall, there's not
Speaker 1: going to be a lot to watch next year. You know,
Speaker 1: we're already starting to see the summer movie season for
Speaker 1: next year impacted. There's no shortage of new shows on
Speaker 1: streaming services. But if they can't get back into production
Speaker 1: by the fall, there will be next year. And there
Speaker 1: already isn't going to be you know, a traditional fall
Speaker 1: TV season, so instead you're going to see international shows
Speaker 1: and reruns and longer versions of reality and sports.
Speaker 2: Of course, since the studios are under so many costs
Speaker 2: pressures because they're not as profitable anymore, will they be
Speaker 2: able to meet the demands that the writers want more money?
Speaker 2: Like where would that money come from?
Speaker 1: I think they can definitely meet some of the demands,
Speaker 1: right We're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars across
Speaker 1: many companies that generate billions of dollars in revenue a year.
Speaker 1: It's just a question of how much, right, So, if
Speaker 1: the studios are willing to give a five percent increase
Speaker 1: on something and the writers want an eleven percent increase,
Speaker 1: they're going to have to meet somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 1: But is the middle six? Is it eight? Is it nine?
Speaker 1: Don't know. There are other subjects where I think the
Speaker 1: unions have asked for things that most people I talk
Speaker 1: to an entertainment agree just aren't going to happen right,
Speaker 1: Like this, the actors have asked for a two percent
Speaker 1: share of all streaming revenue because they want to be
Speaker 1: paid in success. That's just not going to happen that
Speaker 1: like that. That's never happened in Hollywood, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: really make a lot of sense. But is there some
Speaker 1: way that the studios can agree to give the talent,
Speaker 1: you know, more profit, a larger share of quote unquote success.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that actors aren't able to promote their projects.
Speaker 2: We have two huge projects out now, you know, the
Speaker 2: Barbie movie and the Oppenheimer movie. Have they been affected
Speaker 2: in the publicity? Obviously the box office numbers for those
Speaker 2: movies are off the charts.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean the good news for those projects is that
Speaker 1: the actors strike only started like a week before those
Speaker 1: movies came out. So in the case of Barbie in particular,
Speaker 1: that was a month's long marketing assault on everyone that
Speaker 1: was very effective. And so did it hurt a little
Speaker 1: bit maybe at the end that you couldn't have Margot
Speaker 1: Robbiat there, or that with Oppenheimer all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: all the stars and it had to go away. Sure,
Speaker 1: But I don't think it impacted them because they had
Speaker 1: done most of the marketing already and there was just
Speaker 1: sort of this ground fell of support where it would
Speaker 1: impact it. For example, there's a you know, a movie
Speaker 1: coming out later this year, The Dune to the sequel
Speaker 1: to the movie from a couple of years ago. You know,
Speaker 1: that's got Timothy Shallomey, it's got Zendeya. You'd really want
Speaker 1: them on the red carpet. You'd want clips of them
Speaker 1: charming going viral on social media. That's not going to happen,
Speaker 1: and so Warner Brothers has to decide how much does
Speaker 1: that matter? Do we still want to release this project
Speaker 1: or not.
Speaker 2: When we last talked about TV in the fall, you
Speaker 2: had said that one of the great things about streaming
Speaker 2: is that it showcases so many foreign shows that people
Speaker 2: weren't able to watch before, and you were really excited
Speaker 2: about so many South Korean shows. Do you think that
Speaker 2: this is going to be an opportunity for people to
Speaker 2: be introduced to all kinds of shows they otherwise wouldn't
Speaker 2: have watched because there's nothing else to see.
Speaker 1: It's a subject of frequent conversation, I would say, at
Speaker 1: least in our newsroom, it's definitely possible. You've even seen
Speaker 1: some broadcast networks that have shows based on projects from
Speaker 1: other countries that in the fall are bringing those shows
Speaker 1: to the US because they figure, well, if you like this,
Speaker 1: you can see this other thing that's based on I
Speaker 1: don't know how much of that you'll see. I think
Speaker 1: it's one of the reasons why Netflix is in a
Speaker 1: slightly better position than most because they've invested so much.
Speaker 1: They have a pipeline. But getting projects up and running
Speaker 1: and then filming them and then releasing them take time.
Speaker 1: So it's not like Disney can just go, Okay, we're
Speaker 1: not going to have movies and TV shows for a
Speaker 1: little bit, so like, let's go to Europe and make
Speaker 1: a bunch of shows. By the time those projects are ready,
Speaker 1: the strike will be over. Maybe it helps tide them
Speaker 1: over a little bit, but it's only so effective.
Speaker 2: Some actors, notably Mark Ruffalo, have been coming out and
Speaker 2: saying we should use this as an opportunity to kind
Speaker 2: of bust the studio system and go independent. Is that
Speaker 2: a realistic thing.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: Artists have tried to take the power back many times before.
Speaker 1: It's never really worked. Part of it is because artists
Speaker 1: want to be artists, they don't often want to run companies.
Speaker 1: And part of it is also these studios are sitting
Speaker 1: on massive libraries and amounts of capital, and that just
Speaker 1: gives them a lot of advantages.
Speaker 2: So ultimately, Lucas, when all this is over and everyone
Speaker 2: gets back to work, does it make things better? Like
Speaker 2: for viewers, are we going to have a better viewing
Speaker 2: experience having gone through this.
Speaker 1: I don't know that it impacts the average person all
Speaker 1: that much, which is why it can sometimes be hard
Speaker 1: to get them to care. I would say that if
Speaker 1: it produces a system where there is more incentive to
Speaker 1: be sensitive to cost and quality, that would benefit viewers.
Speaker 1: I think one of the problems in streaming is that
Speaker 1: we don't have as consistent and reliable judgments of what
Speaker 1: is and isn't working. And there's been so much produced
Speaker 1: that I think a lot of what gets made is
Speaker 1: like ten to twenty percent worse than it should be
Speaker 1: if there were there was just a little more care.
Speaker 3: Going into everything.
Speaker 1: But I think that would be good.
Speaker 2: Lucas, thanks for coming on the show, Thanks for having me,
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to us here at the Big Take.
Speaker 2: It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 2: shows from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 2: wherever you listen, and we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 2: Email us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg
Speaker 2: dot Net. The supervising producer of The Big Take is
Speaker 2: Vicky Bergolina. Our senior producer is Catherine Fink, and they
Speaker 2: also produced this episode with additional production support from Naielli
Speaker 2: Haramio Plata and Isabelle Carey. Philde Garcia is our engineer.
Speaker 2: Our original music was composed by Leosidrin. I'm west Kasova.
Speaker 2: We'll be back tomorrow with another Big Take