File under: “I didn’t see this coming!”
Who could have?
Years & years ago (1990s-early aughts), I was the Professional Services delivery exec to Hollywood studios for a major technology company. It was in the nascent days of digital cinema and was a blast. How would we store and then post 100 terabytes of shoots? How could we deliver digital dailies? How to deliver to exhibition (theaters) 8-10 terabytes of Final Cut? How would it be transported and paid for? Who would convert the theaters? Who would supply the projectors and how would they work at speed? Compressed or uncompressed video? How would we secure the content?
It was all new tech, new models, new ideas, good people in the engineering and Tech Ops ranks of each of the Majors: good times.
Back then I figured the days of the $20-30M A-list actors were coming to a close cuz technology. S1m0ne (1) would do them all in.
If you just bring the A-lister in, do a full-body scan & digitize him/her, you can make it do whatever the director wants without complaints.
The actor can go on home and you can open the movie without worrying about the actor sleeping in, missing their mark, crappy makeup, 50 takes to get what the director wanted from the actor, etc. No need to pay $20M for that. We had software that would “comb” your hair years and years ago.
S1m0ne 1.0 would be displaced by future versions & no one would know nor care.
What I didn’t foresee was that Woke Hollywood wouldn’t wait for technology; they’d just commit suicide. (2)
And now the aforementioned tech probably won’t resuscitate it.
They were all-in on covidiocy, which changed viewer habits, almost certainly forever, all-in on the vax now causing a few of them each month to Die Suddenly, and now they’re busily making dreck no one is showing up to see.
My view had been that only the actors wouldn’t make bank. Who knew the entire industry would destroy itself… on purpose?
I did NOT see that coming.
Who would have?
(1) S1m0ne movie review & film summary (2002) | Roger Ebert
(2)
It's always been survival of the fittest. These days that focus is pretty much mental/intellectual vs. the days of old physical. Stupid folks slowly drift through the water settling on the bottom to become pond bottom scum. Anything coming out of Hollywood, etc. right now focuses on DEI BS. Public libraries are pretty much the same. They arent smart enough to realize that train has left the station.