The 170,000 actors who piled into the Hollywood Writers’ Strike earlier this year probably tipped the balance in favor of the 11,500 writers. Hollywood couldn’t do without that big a hunk of its creative talent for long. And the actors, as they doubtless foresaw, may be more vulnerable than the writers. Consider, for example:

● James Dean (1931-1955), who died in a car accident — after only three movies — will reportedly star in a new film, Back to Eden — as a digital clone:

The digital cloning of Dean also represents a significant shift in what is possible. Not only will his AI avatar be able to play a flat-screen role in Back to Eden and a series of subsequent films, but also to engage with audiences in interactive platforms including augmented reality, virtual reality and gaming. The technology goes far beyond passive digital reconstruction or deepfake technology that overlays one person’s face over someone else’s body.

S. J. Velasquez, How AI is bringing film stars back from the dead, BBC, July 18, 2023

An earlier effort to recreate Dean, “Finding Jack,” may have fizzled after four years.

But the basic idea is doubtless viable. And the Dean clone will be direct competition for living actors in a way never before possible.

● Iconic rock band Kiss will continue to play as digital avatars after retiring as a live group:

Kiss had been transfigured into that higher form: licensed intellectual property. Their avatars could now roam into the multiverse, the metaverse, and with any luck, some kind of an extended run in Vegas…

“This is the sneak peek as the band crosses over from the physical world to the digital,” says Grady Cofer, visual effects supervisor at ILM. “We want to give fans a sense of the many forms this band could take in the future.”

Burt Helm, Kiss exits the stage and leaves its avatar band to rock and roll all night, forever, Fast Company, December 2, 2023

The avatars of these rock elders are in direct competition, of course, with budding stars.

● Warner Music Group announced earlier this fall that in partnership with French singer Edith Piaf’s estate, it is producing 90-minute “Edith,” set in Paris and New York during her lifetime (1915–1963).

The film will be narrated by an AI-generated facsimile of Piaf’s voice and promises to “uncover aspects of her life that were previously unknown.”

“Animation will provide a modern take on her story, while the inclusion of archival footage, stage and TV performances, personal footage and TV interviews will provide audiences with an authentic look at the significant moments of Piaf’s life,” the music company said in announcing the project.

Todd Spangler, “Edith Piaf AI-Generated Biopic in the Works at Warner Music,” Variety, November 14, 2023

At one time, an actress would have been chosen to play Piaf. Overall, actors and other entertainers might be needed much less in future and then only to generate a new idea that can be tweaked and replicated by ever-smaller studios.

The new technologies may be inexpensive

As a law professor noted back in 2005, the cost of technology has greatly decreased, bringing many more competitors into the field:

It’s the death of a thousand cuts for the entertainment industry, and it’s showing in slumping big-label music sales and this year’s dismal box office returns. What’s more, the amateurs are in it as much for fun as for money. Tech guru Jonathan Peterson says the problem is that the Big Media companies still see audiences strictly as consumers. They don’t realize that many members of their audience want to create as well as consume. “The quality of ‘amateur’ content is exploding at the same time that Big Media companies are going through one of their all-time lows in music and television creativity,” he says. “No wonder we’re spending more time with our PCs than we are with our TVs.”

Glenn Reynolds, Backyard Filmmakers Are Hollywood’s Greatest Fear: Analysis, Popular Mechanics, September 7, 2005

Thus, nearly twenty years later, low-budget indies compete directly with The Studios and often win.

The Big Issue

The stark issue is that, as new technologies put current artists in direct competition with deceased icons, the arts and entertainment industries are rapidly gaining the ability to generate far more material at much lower cost than there is even an audience for.

It won’t be long, says writer Dave Friedman, before Hollywood’s big competition will be “AI-generated content created by someone sitting in front of her laptop.” She will still need that spark of human creativity, of course. But she may not need actors at all, or may need them only for specific purposes. She may in fact be one of them herself.

The next big battle will not be resolved by a strike, It will be a battle to survive and thrive when the technology to produce entertainment is growing much faster than the audience.

You may also wish to read: Can AI write movies you’d want to see? That issue was the heart of the Hollywood writers’ strike. How was it resolved? Or WAS it resolved really? AI can replace screenwriters only if you are content to see the same-old same-old every day forever. That’s true no matter who owns the technology.