Last weekend saw two major releases crash at the box office in DC’s The Flash and Pixar’s Elemental. Maybe everyone was staying home with Netflix’s latest algorithm-charged adventure Extraction 2 with Chris Hemsworth. I’m not going to sit here and talk about what happened with those particular titles and why audiences didn’t show up for them. Instead, I’m going to talk about how the entertainment industry is changing once again.
Public enemy number 1, Warner Bros. Discovery President David Zaslav, has made more cuts to prominent divisions within his company. According to The Wrap,
TCM’s senior vice president of programming and content strategy Charles Tabesh, vice president of studio production Anne Wilson, vice president of marketing and creative Dexter Fedor and TCM Enterprises vice president Genevieve McGillicuddy will all exit the company.
The latest departures follow news on Tuesday that TCM general manager Pola Chagnon is leaving the company after more than 25 years.
These individuals were vital to the health and curation of Turner Classic Movies for over the last two decades. While it doesn’t mean the network is immediately folding up shop, it’s not a promising development for the home of classic movies.
Back in 2018 (which itself feels like a lifetime ago), Warner Bros decided to close down another avenue for classic movies, Filmstruck. That streaming service brought together the best of TCM and the Criterion Collection into one incredible film library. Hollywood reacted to the news in a united fashion, eventually paving the way for the Criterion Channel streaming service. That is one of the best ways to experience older American and International movies, but the TCM connection is gone. Whether or not Hollywood will unite to support TCM now that it’s threatened remains to be seen, but the home for classic cinema on cable television is in big trouble.
The Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) is still on strike and now Disney has given them another reason to stand their ground. Arguably the biggest Disney+ show of the summer, Marvel’s Secret Invasion, has decided to use A.I. art for its title sequence.
If you haven’t been following the strike, one of the bigger arguments is that the writers are looking for protections against A.I. So companies can’t do exactly what Disney has done with this opening title sequence. And look I know very little about Secret Invasion other than it stars Samuel L. Jackson, but this has now become the de facto talking point about the new series. That doesn’t say much about the quality of the show, and frankly justifies the artists who work on these projects striking for better wages and protections against A.I.
Secret Invasion’s director and executive producer Ali Selim talked to Polygon about using A.I. in the title sequence and they thought it was a clever idea. Something to do with the shape-shifting Skrulls that are featured in the program. Well, I don’t buy that for a second.
Here’s a comment about the A.I. opening from Jeff Simpson, one of the creatives who worked on Secret Invasion:
Marvel had some pretty neat title sequences in the past. Look at this feature on Art of the Title for the She Hulk: Attorney At Law opening. This all reeks of cost-cutting and experimenting with cutting out artists. This is especially ironic because artists are exactly who made Marvel the brand it is today. I wish that Disney would learn from this action and be persuaded from using A.I. in future projects like this, but the Internet is an echo chamber. Most of the audience watching Secret Invasion won’t even notice. And that’s a shame.
Anime and AI will have its place as will TCM. I can’t believe the majority of true art lovers will let arts go by the wayside. The strike will be settled and shows other than news will continue I hope