It’s not much of a secret that Hollywood is in a well-deserved tailspin. Every year, the film industry churns out more reboots that no one asked for, recycled plotlines and movies relying on star power instead of good storytelling.
The industry is facing a crisis of creativity and labor ethics, proven by AI actors and executives’ focus on profits over meaningful cinema. Much of this profit-driven decision making came to a head during the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strike of 2023, when actors and writers walked off the job to demand a fairer share of studios’ exorbitant profits. The strike brought attention to how the quality and soul of films have been lost throughout Hollywood. Meanwhile, independent studios like A24 prove that innovative, compelling cinema is still possible.
The Hollywood of today is a shell of the giant it once was. It’s very different from the studios that brought us incredible movies, such as “The Godfather,” “Gone with the Wind” and “Citizen Kane,” among others. This decline was exemplified recently by one of the most baffling decisions in the industry, the introduction of “actress” Tilly Norwood, who is not an actress in the traditional sense. In fact, she is not a person at all. She is a piece of artificial intelligence, a “synthetic actor” introduced by Particle6, a video production company. Considering the controversy and backlash this “actress” has accumulated, I seriously wonder who asked for this. It’s hard to understand how and why executives think AI actors are the solution to outrage over their unethical treatment of actors and writers.
This conversation about AI usage in filmmaking is not new. During the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, many in the industry demanded protections from the use of AI in place of human writers and actors. If any agreements were made to limit AI use, it seems Hollywood studios are already looking for a way to break that agreement. While Norwood’s creator claims she is simply a piece of art, major studios have shown genuine interest in hiring her for upcoming movies. This is an obvious attempt, as pointed out by SAG-AFTRA, to undercut real actors. AI offers a cheaper alternative for profit-driven studios producing formulaic, soulless movies.
These issues help explain the rise of independent films over the past two decades. Indie directors such as Quentin Tarantino and studios like A24 have consistently challenged mainstream filmmaking. A24, in particular, stands out as one of the only studios in the movie industry to consistently produce fantastic movies year after year. In fact, if any movie has captured national conversation in the past decade, I’d give a 50/50 shot the movie was an A24 production. From trailblazing the horror genre with “Hereditary” and “Midsommar,” to radical experimentation with “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” A24 seeks to challenge audiences while delivering stories that stick for years to come.
I say all this not to write an advertisement for A24, but because I believe the studio speaks to the potential that indie filmmaking has to pick up the mantle where Hollywood fails. While not every project succeeds, their risk-taking and commitment to storytelling distinguishes indie films from the formulaic productions mainstream studios have to offer.
