Hollywood mogul Barry Diller gave George Clooney and others some bad news during a recent interview with CBS about how to deal with the bug strike out in Tinseltown.
The writers and actors are on strike and Dilelr says if they don’t solve it soon the entire industry could collapse. He found a nove solution too, for the top stars and execs to take massive pay cuts.
Here is the transcript. A video follows: MARGARET BRENNAN: You know, we were trying to gauge the economic impact of this.
And, according to the Milken Institute, it could cause $4 billion in economic damage. What do you think the impact will be? And how long will these strikes last?
BARRY DILLER: Well, the problem with this particular — all strikes get settled. The issue for this one is — is when, because you have almost a perfect storm here, which is, you had COVID, which sent people home to watch streaming and television and killed theaters.
You — you’ve had the results of huge investments in streaming, which have produced all these losses for all these companies who are now kind of retrenching. So, at this moment, this kind of perfect storm, it’s OK if it gets settled in the next month.
But I will posit what happens if it doesn’t. And there doesn’t seem to be enough trust and energy to get it settled soon. What will happen is, if in fact, it doesn’t get settled until Christmas or so, then, next year, there’s not going to be many programs for anybody to watch. So, you’re going to see subscriptions get pulled, which is going to reduce the revenue of all these movie companies, television companies, the result of which is that there will be no programs.
And at just the time, strike is settled, that you want to get back up, there won’t be enough money. So this actually will have devastating effects, if it is not settled soon. And the problem with settlement in this case is, there’s no trust between the parties. There are existential issues, obviously, A.I., which…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
BARRY DILLER: … I think is just overhyped to death in terms of the worries that actors and writers are going to be replaced, rather than assisted, which is what I think will happen.
So — but there’s no trust. You have the actors union, saying, how dare these 10 people who run these companies earn all this money…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
BARRY DILLER: … and won’t pay us, while, if you look at it on the other side, the top 10 actors get paid more than the top 10 executives.
I’m not saying either is right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
BARRY DILLER: Actually, everybody’s probably overpaid at the top end.
The one idea I had is to say, as a good-faith measure, both the executives and the most-paid actors should take a 25 percent pay cut to try and narrow, narrow the difference between those who get highly paid and those that don’t.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, let…
BARRY DILLER: But I…
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to talk about what you just said in terms of…
BARRY DILLER: No, no, the other…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Go ahead.
BARRY DILLER: The only other thing I would do, I would call for a September 1 deadline.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
BARRY DILLER: There’s a strike deadline. I think there should be a settlement deadline, because unless it happens by September 1, the actions — and, you know, of course, who cares about Hollywood? Who cares about it?
But the truth is, this is a huge business…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Exactly.
BARRY DILLER: … both domestically and for world ex — for world export.
And if it — if these conditions…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
BARRY DILLER: I’m — like, don’t sound like I’m crying to the skies, but these conditions will potentially produce an absolute collapse of an entire industry.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, and, also, they’re all the people who are paid by the hour who work on these sets who aren’t receiving pay when things are shut down. It’s not just people in front of the camera here.
But on your point about A.I. and existential threats here, Fran Drescher, the head of the union, said: We’re all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines.
That’s not the only industry worried about that. If you were running a studio right now, what restrictions would you put on generative A.I.?
BARRY DILLER: Right now, overly hyped, as all revolutions that are at the very beginning.
You know, the downward consequences of the beginning of a revolution, you know, it can be the Romanovs getting shot and Marie Antoinette losing her head. But, in this case, I think the one-to-three-year period, not much is going to happen.
But post that, there are, of course, all these issues. Now, by the way, these issues are not, I believe — relative to some of the worries about replacement, I do not think you’re going to replace — A.I.-generated actors. I don’t think you’re going to replace writers. Yes, you can ingest all this stuff and spit out something that sounds like Shakespeare, but guess what? It is not original Shakespeare.
IAC Chair Barry Diller: “The Top 10 actors get paid more than the Top 10 executives … As a good faith measure, both the executives and most-paid actors should take a 25% pay cut to try and narrow the difference between those who get highly paid and those that don’t.” pic.twitter.com/aR8uvDZeVp
— The Recount (@therecount) July 17, 2023
