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Hollywood has come to be ruled by intellectual property or IP. It’s why much of the summer fare at the movie theater (and increasingly non-summer fare) consists of $500 million live action cartoons based around established intellectual properties.
It’s also why people increasingly don’t go to movie theaters. And why what’s left of the visual entertainment industry is in a downward spiral concentrated around whether Disney, Netflix or Amazon will be able to beat more franchises to death. (Paramount is gamely trying, but it’s only got one franchise to wokeify and beat to death with a trans hammer.)
The problem is that the red lights have been flashing. The Disney Marvel movies that had made it incredibly wealthy and powerful aren’t performing as well as they used to. Disney is still minting money but its reliable performers aren’t anymore.
And then there’s AI.
The notion that AI tools could be used to make movies for a fraction of the cost while dispensing with actors, unionized crews and Hollywood account has mostly been empty speculation. AI animation is fine at doing what Meta, Open and Google really want it to do, generate novelty short clips to be shared on social media, but it’s been a long way from replacing movies.
But maybe not.
Whatever your feelings about Star Wars, this is cinematic. It’s not a movie, but it’s a building block of a movie that uses traditional cinematic techniques created with AI generative models. That may not sound like a big deal, but it’s really more than anyone has done before with a traditional live action franchise. So far. And it also takes a shot at Disney’s second biggest franchise just as Kathleen Kennedy, the woman who ran it into the ground, exits pursued by her poisonous legacy..
The shortfalls with AI are still there. What the people behind this have figured out how to do is work around them. Scrap traditional dialogue. Shift from closeups ‘western’ style to fast-moving special effects scenes and avoid depicting real world environments where the problems can be too obvious.
But the entire process of moviemaking was also about directors and technical people figuring out how to overcome the limitations of the medium as they’ve been doing for over a century.
Can AI take down IP? Suddenly it doesn’t seem that unlikely. And that would have devastating consequences for Hollywood.
Combine with a Gen Z that has trouble sitting through full length movies and paying attention to them, the end of Hollywood may be near. The industry might have a better future if it legitimately commanded the loyalty of audiences instead of insulting them using its monopolies to build empires of intellectual property. But what happens when the internet does to its monopoly what it’s always done to intellectual property?
I miss good movies. Fortunately, there are hundreds of vintage/classic movies I’ve never seen and I look forward to watching them, as well as re-watching many old favorites.
So, actually, it would’ve been more accurate to say that I miss going to a movie theater and seeing good, new movies.
The Palace Theater in Grapevine, Texas is an old theater which shows classic movies, which is a fun experience and never disappoints.
They could get some good story lines from the Ancient Roman Empire.
Didn’t they just do that with Helen of Troy with a woke DEI script and cast?
Yeah, they mess up all the story lines.
“AI” isn’t going to replace actors any more than than robots are going to replace workers. That particularly stupid prediction is 40+ years old and I’ve yet to have a robot make me a burger or sell me ANYTHING, and I never will. None of us will.
The reason far fewer people go to theaters than before 2021 is because of the Wuhan Flu Scamdemic that Alzheimer Joe’s handlers imposed on us hoi polloi in collusion with the CDC, state Governors like Newscum and Shitmer and their fake news media. Not even subscription TV and streaming sites have done near as much damage to movie studios and their industry. Netflix bought the venerable Warner Brothers Studios and tranny Disney is buying everything it can get its pedo paws on but it was the Scamdemic which wreaked by far the most damage. And most Americans hate Disney and what it’s degenerated into.
The scamdemic has all but disappeared from public concern, even though the D-Bags, RINOs and their allies still try to push it and there are still a tiny minority of cretins who still wear masks. Only stupid people, sheep and paranoiacs ever feared a common cold anyway.
Prior to 2021 I went to theaters every weekend and eventually I’ll get back in the habit. The industry will recover even after the incalculable harm done to it by our anti-citizen government and the usual scumbags.
I see we have a troll who likes cartoons lurking about. What’s your favorite? Regular Disney or Marvel Studios Disney?
You know, AI replacing actors is not a bad idea. Maybe robot actors too. They are less likely to spew anti American and anti-Jewish and anti-Israel lies.
Just so long as they can make them spout the “f-” word or its derivatives. I mean, how else would script writers deal with emotional expression?
I’m not a screen writer but I usually deal with emotional expression with the F-word. There’s only one chick I can think of that I have conversations with. The less the other ones talk, the better.
Let’s not forget the other thing that has really damaged Hollywood beyond repair – Japan’s video game and anime industry.
Recently the biggest box office hits have been Japanese anime movies and movies based off of big name video game IPs like Mario and Sonic.
Revelations like that show that Japan’s pop cultural takeover that was feared in the 80s didn’t get stopped by the Bubble Economy bursting in 1994. It was only paused temporarily. Japan may now only be the fifth largest economy but their pop culture takeover is back with a vengeance.
A lot of Japanese anime is very good, both the stories and the animation. The animators need to work on their depictions of human faces, though.
Since day one, I’ve been a fan of Marvel’s anti-hero Deathlok the Demolisher—a fatally injured soldier who got reanimated into a cyborg programmed by the military. After a serious accident, he breaks free from their control and becomes a take-no-prisoners vigilante. A good first episode could be his mission to destroy AI. Fun and havoc for all.
I bought all those old “Astonishing Tales” comics with Deathlok on the cheap years ago. Good stuff. The reanimated corpse of a soldier turned into a killing machine with a computer implanted in his head that spoke to him and he called it “puter.” Ahead of its time in 1974 and definitely not “woke.”
Of course now people can read thousands of comic book series for free on www.readcomiconline.li Free takes the sting out of the woke crap.
Sounds like a remake of The Six Million Dollar Man, Chris.
That opens another can of worms. By reviving old movies and TV programs AI eliminates authors and maybe screenwriters. Cutting costs and maximizing profits will drive this trend.
I gave up on the movies a long time ago — YouTube is better and you can come away smarter depending on what you watch. And if you just want some stupid entertainment Shorts will keep you amused as long as you want.
BTW, Front Page should be turning a lot of your articles into videos by having AI provide the visuals. Even if it is just nature stuff like stormy skies, and rugged coastlines it would be fine. If done right it could bring more people to the FP website.