Variety 8/16/2023

A year ago, nobody in Hollywood was talking about artificial intelligence as an existential threat to the creative community. Now, two unions on strike say the sheer power of this fast-evolving computing platform is a line-in-the-sand issue that must be addressed in the next contract. The suddenness of the AI agita makes it ripe for a deeper look at how we got here. It also calls for some healthy skepticism. Is AI this year’s Web3? VR? Immersive 3D? Or any number of technologies that have come on strong, only to fade quickly away? The first important thing we learned as Todd Spangler, our New York digital editor, explored the subject is that AI is more than an app — it’s an entirely new computing platform that is programmed through human language…

As part of researching this week’s cover story on AI, digital editor Todd Spangler watched “Black Mirror” episodes and posed mischievous questions to ChatGPT. Executive editor of film & media Tatiana Siegel got to bust out some Russian she learned as a child to interview Soviet-born swindler Anna Delvey at her East Village kvartira. TV editor Michael Schneider has been covering this most unusual Emmy season, including how For Your Consideration plans have changed without actors on the campaign trail. Illustrator Francesco Muzzi, who designed the cover for our AI story, says, “I wanted to create something simple but striking, which would communicate a certain urgency and need for attention for what’s coming.”…

New York, N.Y. Aug. 12, 2023 Photograph by Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images Chuck D and Flava Flav of Public Enemy perform at the 50th anniversary of the first hip-hop party near 1520 Sedgwick Ave. in the Bronx on Aug. 12. On Aug. 11, 1973, Clive Campbell, aka DJ Kool Herc, and his sister Cindy Campbell hosted a "jam" in the rec room of 1520 Sedgwick Ave. to raise money for back-to-school clothing. Girls' admission was 25 cents; boys paid 50 cents. The event is widely considered to be the birth of hip-hop.…

Not even time-tested adventurers like Indiana Jones and Ethan Hunt are immune to the shifting sands of the movie business. As those action heroes, played by Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise, returned to theaters in Disney’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” and Paramount’s “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One,” there was hope the potent combination of escapism and nostalgia would invigorate the box office. Instead, both films are among the summer’s most baffling disappointments, and much of that has to do with their outsized budgets. “Indy 5,” which opened in late June, has grossed $375 million globally after six weeks of release, while “M:I 7,” which debuted in July, has generated $523 million after five weeks of release. Those ticket sales are respectable in the current moviegoing…

Ryan Knapp woke up before sunrise one morning in July and left his home in northern New Hampshire at 5:30 a.m. to catch a movie. It wasn’t just any day at the cinema. In fact, it was a 14-hour roundtrip journey that involved crossing two state lines by car, train and bus. That’s because Knapp wanted to see Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” the way the director intended: in Imax 70mm, a rare format crafted from Nolan’s film negative, with physical reels spanning 11 miles and weighing 600 pounds. It’s a movie nerd’s dream — but it’s only available on 30 screens worldwide, 19 of them in the U.S. So Knapp trekked to Providence, R.I., for a 2 p.m. showing. The verdict? “It was definitely worth it.” “Oppenheimer,” an R-rated three-hour drama…

Last year, an aspiring actor got a call to submit an audition for a major network television series. They had less than two days to turn around a complex tape that would have to be shot and produced on their own, their acting coach recalls to Variety. The coach (who asks that he and his client remain anonymous) says the audition consisted of multiple scenes: an elaborately choreographed musical number, a thick chunk of dialogue and a combat sequence. The coach worked with his client for more than four hours, which typically would cost $500. He accepted less than half that, as it was all the actor could spare without facing financial hardship. “You do it for your clients because you want them to succeed, to win, to get the…