How much is enough?

As usual, let's begin with the numbers:

2022

$5.6 billion

$2.75 billion

$942 million

$876 million

$272 million

Between $8 million and $12 million.

The first five numbers are the 2022 profit/operating income of the top five studios in Hollywood. Respectively, they are Netflix, Warner Brothers, NBC/Universal, Sony and Paramount. Source: The Hollywood Reporter.

The range shown below those numbers is what The Hollywood Reporter estimates is the salary range for Studio Chiefs.

Businesses making hundreds of millions annually and apparently; it isn't enough for them. They want to earn a larger piece of the entertainment pie on the backs of the actors and writers. The people who generate the movies and TV series that allow them to earn those gigantic profits. AI is never going to replace the performers who bring in the audiences. Can AI write as well as the members of the WGA? Not in mind.

Full disclosure here: I am a writer. I am not a member of the WGA because there is no union for people who write in the very narrow niche where I eke out a small side income from each year. I tried screenwriting but my works never generated any commercial interest.  I prepare income tax returns as my primary source of income.

In doing tax returns, my client base includes producers, directors, performers and writers. I don't need anyone to tell me just how widely compensation paid to these people varies. I see their incomes. I see how mightily some of them struggle to survive on their meager incomes.

It is true that studios pay a small group of motion picture actors huge salaries. According to Screenrant.com, Tom Cruise earned $100 million from Top Gun: Maverick. It is just as true that some actors toil in front of the cameras and net peanuts in terms of pay.

These studios are so focused on maximizing their profits that they are not above stealing the ideas of others. Oh, you want an example. Okay, let's look at the lawsuit Buchwald v Paramount. You can get the details of the alleged theft of Mr. Buchwald's work here. One note from that tale of avarice. Paramount presented accounting evidence that Coming To America generated $288 million in revenue, but failed to turn a net profit; as defined by Mr. Buchwald's agreement with the studio.

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If the studios were wise, they would compromise, turn slightly smaller profits and this could all be over. They are not that wise though.

So what is the answer? Perhaps it is found in what happened 104 years ago. In 1919, as studios were tying to merge all production companies and to lock in exhibitors to a series of five-year contracts, four of the biggest names in the entertainment industry got together and formed United Artists.

Suppose 20 of Hollywood's most successful actors and others got together to something similar. They would not have much difficulty in raising the money to compete against the current studios. They could adopt a philosophy wherein the use of AI would be minimized or eliminated. They could make films and TV shows and pay living wages to the performers, writers and others without whom movies and other content could not be made.

Just a thought.