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      Margot Robbie’s Best Barbie-Inspired Looks From Her Press Tour

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      The actors’ strike effectively ended the “Barbie” film’s press tour. But Margot Robbie’s pink-carpet outfits are worth remembering.The actors’ strike has hit the brakes on the hot pink convertible that is the “Barbie” film’s press tour.Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling and other stars of Greta Gerwig’s forthcoming movie inspired by the doll are unlikely to appear on pink carpets until further notice in solidarity with SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union. That means the parade of neon fashion led by Ms. Robbie has probably come to an end.Ms. Robbie, who was styled by Andrew Mukamal, had her pick of designers throughout the press tour, from vintage Versace to Vivienne Westwood. But several of the actress’s best looks took inspiration from Barbie’s clothing archive, including a black-and-white-striped swimsuit the doll wore when it was introduced in 1959, a prim skirt suit from the ’80s and a swirly minidress Barbie wore in the ’90s.Those outfits, seen here alongside the Barbie clothes that inspired them, struck the exact right balance between kitschy and chic. “It’s not subtle,” Ms. Robbie said in an interview with People, “but it’s very fun!”This Barbie is glamorous.Mattel; Lia Toby/Getty ImagesEnchanted EveningAt the “Barbie” premiere in London, Ms. Robbie wore a Vivienne Westwood gown accented by a white tulle stole and a three-strand pearl necklace. The look recreated the glamorous get-up of the “Enchanted Evening” Barbie introduced in 1960.This Barbie works hard and plays hard.Mattel (Barbie); Jung Yeon-Je/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; Chung Sung-Jun/Getty ImagesDay to NightThe “Day to Night” Barbie doll, released in 1985, was ready for work and play. Its transitional wardrobe inspired what Ms. Robbie wore at the Seoul premiere: a Versace pencil skirt and blazer, which morphed into a sequined pink bodice and tulle skirt.This Barbie is classic. Mattel; Warner Bros.Original BarbieIn Sydney, Ms. Robbie wore a Hervé Léger bandage dress that paid tribute to the black-and-white one-piece swimsuit worn by the original Barbie. The actress, like the doll, completed her look with white sunglasses and black open-toe shoes.This Barbie is a star.Mattel; Nina Prommer/EPA, via ShutterstockSolo in the SpotlightThe strapless, sequined mermaid gown Ms. Robbie wore to the film’s Los Angeles premiere was a custom Schiaparelli recreation of the dress for the “Solo in the Spotlight” Barbie, a doll released in 1960.This Barbie is groovy. Hector Vivas/Getty ImagesTotally HairIn an abstract Pucci minidress, hot pink Manolo Blahnik heels and long, crimped blond locks, Ms. Robbie channeled the style of “Totally Hair” Barbie, introduced in 1992, at a photo call in Mexico City.This Barbie knows how to accessorize.Mattel; Hector Vivas/Getty ImagesEarring MagicBalmain made the pink leather minidress Ms. Robbie wore to the film’s Mexico City premiere. The look took inspiration from “Earring Magic” Barbie, released in 1992, down to its low-slung belt and chunky earrings.This Barbie is ready for Palm Springs.Mattel; Jon Kopaloff/Getty ImagesPink & FabulousAt a press appearance in Los Angeles, Ms. Robbie wore a custom Valentino halter dress that referenced the “Pink & Fabulous” Barbie, a doll introduced in 2015.This Barbie is polished.Mattel; Lee Jin-Man/Associated PressSparkling PinkThe bedazzled three-piece Moschino set that Ms. Robbie wore in Seoul was an updated version of the skirt suit worn by the “Sparkling Pink” Barbie, released in 1964.This Barbie is Ms. Robbie. Mattel; Steve Marcus/Reuters‘Barbie’: The MovieOf all Ms. Robbie’s Barbie-inspired outfits, the most meta might have been the pink-and-white gingham set she wore at CinemaCon in Las Vegas. The look referenced a dress Ms. Robbie wears in the “Barbie” trailer and the frock made for a new Barbie doll based on Ms. Robbie’s likeness.Elizabeth Paton More

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      Why You Should See ‘Oppenheimer’ in IMAX 70-Millimeter

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      The IMAX 70-millimeter format is usually associated with action. But Christopher Nolan says his biopic benefited from the tall image.On Friday morning, Vasili Birlidis and three friends will pile into a rented car in Gainesville, Fla., and drive 10 hours round-trip to see a movie that will be playing on thousands of screens across the country, including in their own town.But this is not just any movie. And more important, they are not traveling for just any screen.It’s “Oppenheimer,” the new biopic about the man who spearheaded the development of the atomic bomb during World War II, and Birlidis, 27, insists on seeing it at the Mall of Georgia outside Atlanta on opening day because that is the closest the movie is being shown in IMAX 70-millimeter.Many movie aficionados consider that format the gold standard, and Christopher Nolan, the writer and director of “Oppenheimer,” made it to be seen that way. But the film is available in IMAX 70-millimeter at just 30 screens in the world, 19 of them in the United States. None of those sites are in Gainesville. Or Chicago, where Ayethaw Tun, 30, lives; he is driving to Indianapolis to see it. Or Rome, where Federico Larosa, 34, lives; he is flying to London.If you see an IMAX theater option for “Oppenheimer,” odds are it is not 70-millimeter film but a digital projection. This format, in which “Oppenheimer” is available on more than 700 screens globally, has much to recommend it: high resolution, excellent sound. Like IMAX 70-millimeter, digital IMAX has a different aspect ratio than standard theaters, meaning you will get a taller image. Imagine watching E.T. and Elliott bicycling past the moon, but you also see the night sky above the moon and all the way to the ground.Film threaded through an IMAX 70-millimeter projector. The frames provide a much taller image than usual. Evelyn Freja for The New York TimesTo film buffs who are buffs, specifically, of film — of movies shot and projected with a physical, photochemical product — comparing IMAX 70-millimeter to IMAX digital, let alone standard digital, is like comparing lightning to the lightning bug.“It’s how much of the image you’re missing if you see it on another screen,” said Birlidis, a former theater manager. “To be able to see the full film the way the director intended,” he added, “and see it on film, which is a dying breed, and at one of 30 theaters on the planet — that’s pretty special.”Nolan acknowledged in an interview that the vast majority of moviegoers will not see “Oppenheimer” in what he considers the optimal way. “I am of the first or second generation of filmmakers for whom it was absolutely clear that the majority of people were going to see their work on television, after the fact,” he said. The first time he saw the 1982 film “Blade Runner,” one of his favorites, he added, was on a pirated VHS tape.But Nolan, who brought to our interview two kinds of film stock and a flip book the IMAX company made for him to illustrate film’s superior visual detail over digital, is evangelical about the format. He explained that IMAX 70-millimeter negatives are roughly 10 times the size of those for 35-millimeter film, for decades the theatrical standard that digital projection aspired to supplant, resulting in a crisper, clearer image. He can cite several IMAX 70-millimeter destinations off-the-cuff. (The AMC Metreon in San Francisco is “a wonderfully huge screen.”) He knew Brooklyn has one of the roughly 100 theaters showing “Oppenheimer” in ordinary 70-millimeter film — an “absolutely beautiful” print, he said.Despite the comparatively few theaters showing the most advanced formats, he argued, the effort to make it available at all was worth it to him as well as to audiences, who can expect to pay a premium (an evening ticket to see “Oppenheimer” in IMAX 70-millimeter film in Manhattan costs nearly $30). “It’s like getting a nice dinner rather than going to Jimmy John’s,” Julian Antos, the executive director of the Chicago Film Society, said, referring to the Midwestern sandwich chain.“The event, epic size, quality of that trickles down to the excitement for the film in all other mediums, down to when somebody’s watching on their telephone,” Nolan said. “They have different expectations of what a film that has been distributed in that way is. And so it’s always been important beyond the sheer number of screens.”The IMAX 70-millimeter projectors require specialists to run. Evelyn Freja for The New York TimesA digital projector. “Oppenheimer” will be shown this way on most screens.Evelyn Freja for The New York TimesA digital-projector lens. Nolan recommends that audiences see his movie on film.Evelyn Freja for The New York TimesIMAX has come to stand for an entire experience: IMAX certifies theaters for stadium-like seating, viewing angle and darkness. The film itself is projected onto a huge screen — the one at the AMC Lincoln Square in Manhattan is 97 feet by 76 feet — that dominates your peripheral vision.Nolan’s are practically the only feature films these days that both use IMAX film cameras and are shown using IMAX projectors. (Several recent movies shot partly with IMAX cameras, including last year’s “Nope,” were not projected on IMAX 70-millimeter.) For “Oppenheimer,” theaters are trotting out most of the 48 working IMAX 70-millimeter projectors left in the world. These mammoth machines can drag an “Oppenheimer” copy — 53 reels that together weigh 600 pounds and hold footage that would run 11 miles — across their 15,000-watt lamps. The theaters call into service 60 projectionists with special training, some of them retired. “Chris has a particular affinity — and he’s almost a unicorn in this regard — for IMAX film,” Rich Gelfond, IMAX’s chief executive, said. “Without Chris, certainly, there wouldn’t be as many as exist today.”The director working with the star, Cillian Murphy, on the set of “Oppenheimer.” Nolan is the rare filmmaker to use IMAX cameras and projection.Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures, via Associated PressAfter his 2005 action movie “Batman Begins,” screened in digitally remastered IMAX, Nolan’s follow-up, “The Dark Knight” (2008), was the first Hollywood feature shot partly with IMAX cameras. He used them for the opening set-piece, a daring bank heist masterminded by Heath Ledger’s the Joker, and showed a reel to studio executives. “They were absolutely thrilled,” Nolan said. “Once you see it, you understand it kind of in your bones.”Almost every Nolan movie since has used IMAX cameras. “Dunkirk” (2017) is roughly two-thirds IMAX, and, as in both his 2020 drama “Tenet” and now “Oppenheimer,” what is not IMAX was shot in traditional 70-millimeter. If you are seeing a Nolan film in IMAX, you might notice how the image toggles between filling up the whole screen and letterboxing to fill just the middle.Unlike many Nolan movies, “Oppenheimer” is dominated not by action spectacle, but by tense conversations. Nolan said he and his cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema, realized IMAX was “a wonderful format for faces” and even for the cramped committee room where a good deal of “Oppenheimer” takes place. “The screen disappears,” Nolan said. “So you’re in intimate space with the subjects.” (The filmmakers also helped develop the first black-and-white IMAX film expressly for certain scenes.)“It’s how much of the image you’re missing if you see it on another screen,” one fan, Vasili Birlidis, said, explaining why he’s driving hours to watch “Oppenheimer” in IMAX 70-millimeter.Evelyn Freja for The New York TimesNolan argued that his passion for how his movies are made and displayed was justified by their influence over the viewer’s ultimate experience, even if the average filmgoer might not consciously register the difference.“I have to believe I wouldn’t care about it as much if it didn’t have an emotional effect,” Nolan said. “There’s a favorite tactic of studio executives,” he added, “which is to say, Well, at the end of the day, isn’t it all about story? To which you say, Well, no, otherwise we would be distributing audiobooks or radio plays. In the last analysis, it is not all about story. It’s about the moving image, it’s about cinematic storytelling, and the greatest movies made could only be films.” More

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      ‘Unknown: Cave of Bones’ Review: Making Us Human

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      This Netflix documentary chronicles archaeological discoveries that shed light on an ancient human relative.“It challenges us to question: What does it even mean to be human?” This declaration comes from Agustín Fuentes, an anthropologist, at the beginning of “Unknown: Cave of Bones,” and it becomes a refrain throughout this documentary. It’s the kind of statement that can read as trite and grandiose — particularly in the context of a science program — but here it has a gravity that is reinforced and viscerally felt over the course of the film.Directed by Mark Mannucci, “Unknown: Cave of Bones,” focuses on a recent expedition into a South African cave that contains skeletal remains of the ancient human relative homo naledi. The archaeologists’ findings lead them to conclude that the naledi, who may have existed as far back as 335,000 years ago, ritualistically buried their dead, which was previously unheard-of for such an ancient species.As the team unearths evidence, the documentary offers a ripe window into the process of scientific discovery. Most of all, the film offers an affecting story of a species told through a single cave, where according to researchers including Fuentes and the paleoanthropologist Lee Berger, the naledi would risk life and limb to memorialize their dead.In this sense, in the experts’ telling, to challenge what makes us human is also to remind us of the most basic hallmarks of ourselves: to love, to grieve, to honor a life and to hope that we’ll see each other again.Unknown: Cave of BonesNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      Hollywood Strikes: Labor Day Looms as Crisis Point

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      Ongoing strikes could disrupt the entertainment industry in fundamental ways, putting the 2024 box office and the fall broadcast lineup in jeopardy.In May, when 11,500 movie and television writers went on strike, Hollywood companies like Netflix, NBCUniversal and Disney reacted with what amounted to a shrug. The walkout wasn’t great, but executives had expected it for months. They could ride it out.The angry response from Hollywood’s corporate ranks when actors went out on Friday was dramatically different. What began as an inconvenience has become a crisis.For a start, the actors’ union is much more powerful than the writers’ guild, with a membership of about 160,000 that includes world-famous celebrities studied in the art of delivering messages to captivated audiences. The film and TV scripts that studios had banked in case of a writers’ strike have been suddenly rendered inert, deprived of actors to bring them to life. Numerous big-budget movies that had been shooting had to shut down immediately, including “Twisters,” “Venom 3,” “Deadpool 3” and “Gladiator 2.”In interviews, three studio chairs who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the labor situation, said Hollywood’s content factories could sit idle for little more than a month — roughly until Labor Day — until there would be a serious impact on the release calendar for 2024, particularly for movies. A work stoppage that stretches into September could force studios to delay big projects for next year by six months, making 2024 resemble the ghost town of recent memory set off by the Covid-19 pandemic.Studios had just gotten the release schedule looking normal again, with one big movie following another. Another significant lull in offerings may be devastating for theaters. This year’s box office has already been underwhelming and, with striking actors barred from publicity efforts, films scheduled for the second half of 2023 could be affected — especially those with awards aspirations. One of the studio executives on Friday predicted it could imperil at least one of the national cinema chains.Bobbie Bagby Ford, the chief creative officer and executive vice president of B&B Theatres, a midlevel chain with more than 50 locations in 14 states, said the strikes “have impacted the industry at a difficult time.”“The duration of the ongoing strike will play a significant role in its impact on cinemas,” Ms. Bagby Ford said. “If it remains short enough to prevent an overwhelming backlog of movies, the situation can be managed.”Greg Marcus, chief executive of the Marcus Corporation — which owns the fourth-largest theater chain in the country — agreed that the strikes were unnerving but said they were less threatening to the industry than the pandemic.“Depending on the length of time, there could be a gap in a year,” Mr. Marcus said. “But it’s not like being closed for months on end, people debating the value of theatrical, and then big gaps because of production delays.”Labor Day will arrive in a heartbeat, which would seem to prompt studios to break the standstill with the actors sooner rather than later. But there’s a problem: Studio executives were genuinely surprised by the Screen Actors Guild’s reaction to their proposed terms. They felt they had made significant concessions and were stunned by the union’s rhetoric, especially since they were able to amicably negotiate a lucrative new contract in 2020.The proposed terms included increased pay, protections around the audition process and more favorable terms for pension and health contributions. They also offered that dancers receive an on-camera rate for rehearsal days.In particular, the studios — acknowledging in private conversations that they had made a mistake by largely ignoring the writers’ demands for guardrails around artificial intelligence — proposed terms for use of A.I. that their negotiators said would protect actors.But it wasn’t enough to avert a strike. Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the actors’ chief negotiator, said in an interview on Saturday that the studio’s proposal was unreasonable. The artificial intelligence terms jeopardize “the entire field of acting,” Mr. Crabtree-Ireland said, adding that studios also weren’t offering actors revenue participation in streaming.“Those are the core issues,” Mr. Crabtree-Ireland said. “And the fact that the companies won’t move on them reflects a colonial attitude toward the workers who are the entire basis of the existence of their companies.” He said actors want to begin bargaining again.The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which negotiates on behalf of the studios, disputed Mr. Crabtree-Ireland’s characterization of its members’ attitudes, citing terms of its proposal including a “groundbreaking A.I. proposal that protects actors’ digital likenesses.”An empty red carpet for Disney’s premiere of “Haunted Mansion” in Anaheim, Calif., on Saturday.Allison Dinner/EPA, via ShutterstockThe frustration on the other side of the bargaining table was evinced by comments made on Thursday by Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, who said during an interview on CNBC that workers were being “unrealistic.” Pouring gas on the fire was an article on the show business website Deadline that quoted an anonymous studio executive, who threatened to “bleed out” writers until they “start losing their apartments.” The studio alliance said the anonymous executive did not speak for its members.Though some executives see a brief stoppage as an opportunity to slash costs, a long-term shutdown has the potential to cause havoc in an entertainment industry already buffeted by the rise of streaming and struggles at the box office.“While media execs try to spin the dual strikes as a positive as production spending stops, investors are far more concerned that this will be a long strike that hurts the performance of already completed movies and TV series,” said Rich Greenfield, an analyst at the research firm LightShed Partners.If the twin strikes drag on for just one or two months, companies will probably seize on the shutdown as an opportunity to save cash that they otherwise would have been spending on preproduction — the work done before shooting starts — and bidding on scripts, said Michael Nathanson, an analyst at SVB MoffettNathanson who focuses on the media and entertainment industries. Some of those costs will be incurred later anyway, he noted.They can also take a second look at the shows and films they have in the pipeline, pruning ones that are too costly, Mr. Nathanson said. He compared a brief strike to a halftime break for a losing team that needs to draw up a new strategy.The strike also threatens lucrative, long-term deals struck by media companies during the streaming boom, when they were willing to shell out astounding sums to lure creators like Shonda Rhimes, Ryan Murphy and J.J. Abrams. Some long-term deals have force majeure clauses, which take effect on the 60th or 90th day of a strike, allowing the studios to terminate their contracts without paying a penalty. Mr. Greenfield said those clauses could theoretically let studios get expensive deals off the books, but invoking them would jeopardize relationships with top talent in the future.If actors aren’t back to work by the fall, it will hurt network television, which needs them for new shows coveted by advertisers, Mr. Nathanson said. He added that traditional media companies based in the United States are at a disadvantage compared with Netflix, the dominant streaming company, which can take advantage of its production facilities around the world.“It’s like if the United Auto Workers go on strike, and all of a sudden you see more cars from Japan and Germany on the road,” Mr. Nathanson said.Publicly, studio executives are urging Hollywood to get back to work. Mr. Iger said last week in an interview from the annual Sun Valley conference for business titans that the strike would have a “very damaging” effect on the entertainment industry.There’s little indication, however, that a deal is close.The negotiating parties have all said they want to reach a fair agreement, placing the blame for the standstill on the other side. But they all acknowledge privately that if Hollywood doesn’t thaw out in time, everyone will get frostbite.”Making nothing as a cost-saving strategy is foolish with the fall TV season rapidly approaching and advertisers and consumers expecting new programming,” said Ellen Stutzman, the chief negotiator for the Writers Guild of America. More

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      How the Strikes Will Affect Prestige Fall Films like ‘Maestro’

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      Without stars on the red carpet, prestige titles like the Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro” and the Elvis Presley tale “Priscilla” may not get the push they need.With summer movie season at its midpoint, Hollywood typically begins to turn its gaze toward the fall, when a trio of major film festivals acts as the unofficial kickoff to Oscar season. Seven of the last 10 best-picture winners had their debuts at a fall festival, coming out of the gate with standing ovations and critical acclaim that helped propel them through the monthslong awards-show gantlet.But now that SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America are both on strike, could a protracted battle between the unions and the studios cause those fall launchpads to fizzle?Though the writers’ strike, which began May 2, didn’t have much of an effect on the Cannes Film Festival that month, the actors’ strike that started Friday may significantly reshape coming fests in Venice, Telluride, Colo., and Toronto. That’s because SAG-AFTRA is prohibiting members from promoting any film while the strike is on, an across-the-board ban that includes interviews, photo calls and red-carpet duties. Without those appearances, festivals will be sapped of the star power that is invaluable to raising a film’s profile.The first event that will probably be affected is the Venice Film Festival, which begins its 80th edition on Aug. 30 with the premiere of the sexy tennis comedy “Challengers,” starring Zendaya. Venice has lately rivaled Cannes for glamour and headlines, so the loss of famous actors would be a big blow. Nearly all the major moments at Venice last year were star-driven, from the viral clip of Brendan Fraser crying after the premiere of “The Whale” to the social-media scrutiny of Harry Styles and Chris Pine as they appeared to clash while promoting “Don’t Worry Darling.” (Though if there had been a strike, Florence Pugh, the star, would have had a better excuse for infamously skipping that film’s news conference.)The festival will announce its full lineup on July 25, and buzz suggests it could include highly anticipated films like Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein biopic, “Maestro”; Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla,” about the relationship between Elvis Presley and his wife, Priscilla; and “The Killer,” a David Fincher thriller starring Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton. Those auteurs are at least famous enough to pick up some of the promotional slack, though Cooper might be in a bind as both the director and star of “Maestro,” since any press he does could be seen as flouting SAG’s prohibition.The Telluride Film Festival, which runs Sept. 1-4 and shot to the spotlight the likes of “Lady Bird” and “Moonlight,” should be less stricken by the absence of stars: That intimate Colorado gathering is a favorite of famous attendees because they’re not required to do photo ops or media blitzes and can instead mill around like regular people.But the Toronto International Film Festival, beginning Sept. 7, is a heady 10-day affair filled with red carpets, portrait studios and press junkets that will all shrink significantly if actors are forbidden to attend. Canadian businesses are already bracing for a hit to their bottom line if the festival contracts. Organizers issued a statement of concern last week: “The impact of this strike on the industry and events like ours cannot be denied. We will continue planning for this year’s festival with the hope of a swift resolution in the coming weeks.”There is a workaround for actors to attend festivals, but it’s a slim one: Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the SAG-AFTRA negotiator, has said that “truly independent” films able to secure interim agreements with the guild could allow their stars to do media duties. Still, that’s a proviso more likely to spare the indie-focused Sundance Film Festival in January rather than fall festivals, where the biggest titles tend to hail from major studios. And if the SAG strike continues into January, it will be more than just festivals that feel the pinch.A monthslong strike would hit the awards-season ecosystem with its toughest test since Covid: If stars can’t attend ceremonies, could the events be held at all? (At least when these things were on Zoom, the nominated stars showed up.) Post-pandemic, prestige films need all the help they can get at the box office. If they can’t be sustained by awards chatter and media-happy movie stars, studios could opt to move some more vulnerable year-end titles to 2024.That could provide an awards-season advantage to streamers like Netflix, which don’t have to factor the box office into decisions on what to debut or delay. And movies that have already had a big cultural moment — like A24’s “Past Lives,” an art-house hit from June, or Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which will be released by Apple in October but received a major premiere at Cannes in May — will be better positioned to thrive this awards season than films that may not have full-fledged press tours.Will an agreement in this bitter battle be reached in time to save awards season? Even if both sides can compromise before the televised ceremonies begin, one change is likely to still be felt: Don’t expect the usual list of studio executives to be quite so effusively thanked in acceptance speeches. More

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      Why Care About Hollywood Strikes? We’re All Background Actors.

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      Why should you care about the strikes in Hollywood? Because they are much more than a revolt of the privileged.In Hollywood, the cool kids have joined the picket line.I mean no offense, as a writer, to the screenwriters who have been on strike against film and TV studios for over two months. But writers know the score. We’re the words, not the faces. The cleverest picket sign joke is no match for the attention-focusing power of Margot Robbie or Matt Damon.SAG-AFTRA, the union representing TV and film actors, joined the writers in a walkout over how Hollywood divvies up the cash in the streaming era and how humans can thrive in the artificial-intelligence era. With that star power comes an easy cheap shot: Why should anybody care about a bunch of privileged elites whining about a dream job?But for all the focus that a few boldface names will get in this strike, I invite you to consider a term that has come up a lot in the current negotiations: “Background actors.”You probably don’t think much about background actors. You’re not meant to, hence the name. They’re the nonspeaking figures who populate the screen’s margins, making Gotham City or King’s Landing or the beaches of Normandy feel real, full and lived-in.And you might have more in common with them than you think.The lower-paid actors who make up the vast bulk of the profession are facing simple dollars-and-cents threats to their livelihoods. They’re trying to maintain their income amid the vanishing of residual payments, as streaming has shortened TV seasons and decimated the syndication model. They’re seeking guardrails against A.I. encroaching on their jobs.There’s also a particular, chilling question on the table: Who owns a performer’s face? Background actors are seeking protections and better compensation in the practice of scanning their images for digital reuse.Background actors fill out the worlds of shows like “Game of Thrones.”Macall B. Polay/HBOIn a news conference about the strike, a union negotiator said that the studios were seeking the rights to scan and use an actor’s image “for the rest of eternity” in exchange for one day’s pay. The studios argue that they are offering “groundbreaking” protections against the misuse of actors’ images, and counter that their proposal would only allow a company to use the “digital replica” on the specific project a background actor was hired for.Still, the long-term “Black Mirror” implications — the practice was the actual premise of a recent episode — are unignorable. If a digital replica of you — without your bothersome need for money and the time to lead a life — can do the job, who needs you?You could, I guess, make the argument that if someone is insignificant enough to be replaced by software, then they’re in the wrong business. But background work and small roles are precisely the routes to someday promoting your blockbuster on the red carpet. And many talented artists build entire careers around a series of small jobs. (Pamela Adlon’s series “Better Things” is a great portrait of the life of ordinary working actors.)In the end, Hollywood’s fight isn’t far removed from the threats to many of us in today’s economy. “We are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines,” Fran Drescher, the actors’ guild president, said in announcing the strike.You and I may be the protagonists of our own narratives, but in the grand scheme most of us are background players. We face the same risk — that every time a technological or cultural shift happens, companies will rewrite the terms of employment to their advantage, citing financial pressures while paying their top executives tens and hundreds of millions.Annie Murphy in a recent episode of “Black Mirror,” in which an actor’s likeness was used by unscrupulous streaming executives.Nick Wall/NetflixMaybe it’s unfair that exploitation gets more attention when it involves a union that Meryl Streep belongs to. (If the looming UPS strike materializes, it might grab the spotlight for blue-collar labor.) And there’s certainly a legitimate critique of white-collar workers who were blasé about automation until A.I. threatened their own jobs.But work is work, and some dynamics are universal. As the entertainment reporter and critic Maureen Ryan writes in “Burn It Down,” her investigation of workplace abuses throughout Hollywood, “It is not the inclination nor the habit of the most important entities in the commercial entertainment industry to value the people who make their products.”If you don’t believe Ryan, listen to the anonymous studio executive, speaking of the writers’ strike, who told the trade publication Deadline, “The endgame is to allow things to drag out until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.”You may think of Hollywood creatives as a privileged class, but if their employers think about them like this, are you sure yours thinks any differently of you? Most of us, in Hollywood or outside it, are facing a common question: Can we have a working world in which you can survive without being a star?You may never notice background actors if they’re doing their jobs well. Yet they’re the difference between a sterile scene and a living one. They create the impression that, beyond the close focus on the beautiful leads, there is a full, complete universe, whether it’s the galaxy of the “Star Wars” franchise or the mundane reality that you and I live in.They are there to say that we, too, are out here, that we make the world a world, that we at least deserve our tiny places in the corner of the screen. More

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      In Hollywood, the Strikes Are Just Part of the Problem

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      The entertainment industry is trying to figure out the economics of streaming. It’s also facing angst over a tech-powered future and fighting to stay culturally dominant.Existential hand-wringing has always been part of Hollywood’s personality. But the crisis in which the entertainment capital now finds itself is different.Instead of one unwelcome disruption to face — the VCR boom of the 1980s, for instance — or even overlapping ones (streaming, the pandemic), the movie and television business is being buffeted on a dizzying number of fronts. And no one seems to have any solutions.On Friday, roughly 160,000 unionized actors went on strike for the first time in 43 years, saying they were fed up with exorbitant pay for entertainment moguls and worried about not receiving a fair share of the spoils of a streaming-dominated future. They joined 11,500 already striking screenwriters, who walked out in May over similar concerns, including the threat of artificial intelligence. Actors and writers had not been on strike at the same time since 1960.“The industry that we once knew — when I did ‘The Nanny’ — everybody was part of the gravy train,” Fran Drescher, the former sitcom star and the president of the actors’ union, said while announcing the walkout. “Now it’s a walled-in vacuum.”At the same time, Hollywood’s two traditional businesses, the box office and television channels, are both badly broken.This was the year when moviegoing was finally supposed to bounce back from the pandemic, which closed many theaters for months on end. At last, cinemas would reclaim a position of cultural urgency.But ticket sales in the United States and Canada for the year to date (about $4.9 billion) are down 21 percent from the same period in 2019, according to Comscore, which compiles box office data. Blips of hope, including strong sales for “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” have been blotted out by disappointing results for expensive films like “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” “Elemental,” “The Flash,” “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” and, to a lesser extent, “The Little Mermaid” and “Fast X.”The number of movie tickets sold globally may reach 7.2 billion in 2027, according to a recent report from the accounting firm PwC. Attendance totaled 7.9 billion in 2019.It’s a slowly dying business, but it’s at least better than a quickly dying one. Fewer than 50 million homes will pay for cable or satellite television by 2027, down from 64 million today and 100 million seven years ago, according to PwC. When it comes to traditional television, “the world has forever changed for the worse,” Michael Nathanson, an analyst at SVB MoffettNathanson, wrote in a note to clients on Thursday.Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount Global and WarnerBros. Discovery have relied for decades on television channels for fat profit growth. The end of that era has resulted in stock-price malaise. Disney shares have fallen 55 percent from their peak in March 2021. Paramount Global, which owns channels like MTV and CBS, has experienced an 83 percent decline over the same period.On Thursday, Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, put the sale of the company’s “noncore” channels, including ABC and FX, on the table. He called the decline in traditional television “a reality we have to come to grips with.”In other words, it’s over.The latest installment of “Mission: Impossible” is opening this week and could be a rare bright spot at the box office.Mark Abramson for The New York TimesAnd then there is streaming. For a time, Wall Street was mesmerized by the subscriber-siphoning potential of services like Disney+, Max, Hulu, Paramount+ and Peacock, so the big Hollywood companies poured money into building online viewing platforms. Netflix was conquering the world. Amazon had arrived in Hollywood determined to make inroads, as had the ultra-deep-pocketed Apple. If the older entertainment companies wanted to remain competitive — not to mention relevant — there was only one direction to run.“You now have, really in control, tech companies who haven’t a care or clue, so to speak, about the entertainment business — it’s not a pejorative, it’s just the reality,” Barry Diller, the media veteran, said by phone this past week, referring to Amazon and Apple.“For each of these companies,” he added, “their minor business, not their major business, is entertainment. And yet, because of their size and influence, their minor interests are paramount in making any decisions about the future.”A little over a year ago, Netflix reported a subscriber loss for the first time in a decade, and Wall Street’s interest swiveled. Forget subscribers. Now we care about profits — at least when it comes to the old-line companies, because their traditional businesses (box office and channels) are in trouble.To make services like Disney+, Paramount+ and Max (formerly HBO Max) profitable, their parent companies have slashed billions of dollars in costs and eliminated more than 10,000 jobs. Studio executives also put the brakes on ordering new television series last year to rein in costs.WarnerBros. Discovery has said its streaming business, anchored by Max, will be profitable in 2023. Disney has promised profitability by September 2024, while Paramount had not forecast a date, except to say peak losses will occur this year, according to Rich Greenfield, a founder of the LightShed Partners research firm.Giving in to union demands, which would threaten streaming profitability anew, is not something the companies will do without a fight.“In the short term, there will be pain,” said Tara Kole, a founding partner of JSSK, an entertainment law firm that counts Emma Stone, Adam McKay and Halle Berry as clients. “A lot of pain.”Every indication points to a long and destructive standoff. Agents who have worked in show business for 40 years said the anger surging through Hollywood exceeded anything they had ever seen.“Straight out of ‘Les Miz’” was how one longtime executive described the high-drama, us-against-them mood in a text to a reporter. Photos circulating online from this past week’s Allen & Company Sun Valley media conference, the annual “billionaires’ summer camp” attended by Hollywood’s haves, inflamed the situation.On a Paramount Pictures picket line on Friday, Ms. Drescher attacked Mr. Iger, something few people in Hollywood would dare to do without the cloak of anonymity. She criticized his pay package (his performance-based contract allows for up to $27 million annually, including stock awards, which is middle of the road for entertainment chief executives) and likened him and other Hollywood moguls to “land barons of a medieval time.”“It’s so obvious that he has no clue as to what is really happening on the ground,” she added. Mr. Iger had told CNBC on Thursday that the demands by the two unions were “just not realistic.”In the coming weeks, studios will probably cancel lucrative long-term deals with writers (and some actor-producers) by virtue of the force majeure clause in their contracts, which kick in on the 60th or 90th day of a strike, depending on how the agreements are structured. The force majeure clause states that when unforeseeable circumstances prevent someone from fulfilling a contract, the studios can cancel the deal without paying a penalty.Eventually, contracts with the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA, as the actors’ union is known, will be hammered out.The deeper business challenges will remain.Nicole Sperling More

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      Tiffany Haddish Dances to the Beat of Her Never-Ending Internal Soundtrack

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      The actress employs grapeseed oil for rough skin and an Eddie Murphy classic for rough days.This summer, Tiffany Haddish plays a marijuana-smoking cat (“The Freak Brothers”), a detective pulled out of retirement (“The Afterparty”), a psychic in a film based on a Disneyland ride (“Haunted Mansion”) and the mother of a child who broadcasts his love life to aliens (“Landscape With Invisible Hand”). For her, the mom is the most relatable.“I’ve raised my sisters and brothers,” she said in a phone interview from Los Angeles in June. “When I was married, I was raising my ex-husband’s kid. I know what it feels like.”The biggest reach was the psychic. Haddish, 43, said she’s no psychic, but she does set expectations. Every night before she goes to bed, she writes down what happened that day and what she wants to get out of the next one.“It always starts with ‘I am,’” she said. “I am going to break this man’s heart tomorrow because he’s on my last, last …”Haddish talked about the other tools — the tea, movies, music and dancing — she relies on to navigate her days. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1GardeningMy backyard is full of things like celery, lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, basil — all the things that you need to survive. I started gardening when I was a kid. As an adult, I started growing vegetables as a way to escape from the shenanigans going on in my life. Even when I was homeless, I would grow cucumbers in a cup in the car window. It was like: If I can grow these seeds, I can do anything. They would die.2DogsRight now, I have an American bulldog named Slumber and a Maltese-Yorkie mix called Sleeper. Both of them are named after things I really want to do. I used to raise pit bulls, which I think are the sweetest, most obedient, friendly, helpful dogs ever. Pit bulls are way smarter than American bulldogs.3Hibiscus and Smooth Move TeasTraveling so much, I don’t know, something about being on airplanes gives me a little backup. So, at least once a week I like to drink some Smooth Move tea mixed with hibiscus tea.4‘Boomerang’It’s my go-to movie when I’m sad. It makes me laugh every single time, and it brings me joy. I turned over a Blockbuster Video back in the day ’cause they didn’t have it. I knocked over two racks on my way out. That’s when I decided to buy the movie. But I bought it at a different store. I had to leave that Blockbuster.5Alkaline Spring WaterIt’s my favorite water to drink. I don’t know what kind of island this is I’m on, so I definitely want some fresh alkaline spring water. I don’t want to drink purified water — I might as well just drink out the back of the toilet. I want to drink water from streams, springs, from the Earth.6Grapeseed OilI use it for everything. I use it to fry foods. Sometimes I put it on my elbows and knees. It makes all that crumpled-up skin nice and soft. Sometimes I put it all over my body. Grape seeds are really good for you. That’s why I’m so mad they took all the seeds out of grapes. You need them seeds. How you going to be fruitful? They’re trying to kill us, man.7Taylor SwiftIt’s funny because when she first came out, I was like, I don’t know about this. It’s kind of corny. Then they played those songs over and over on the radio, and the next thing you know, you’re like, yeah, jumping around and dancing. I can get with Taylor Swift. I have a good time with Taylor Swift’s music, reflecting on past things, past relationships.8DancingIt’s necessary. I try to dance every day. It keeps you young. Eating my food, I’m dancing. Trying on clothes, I’m dancing. There’s a soundtrack always going in my head.9WashclothsI like a good washcloth. I know a lot of people out here, they use soap and water and that’s it. Well, I beg to differ. You need something to remove the dead skin and the dirt. And even if you run out of soap, if you have a washcloth, you can always clean. When I go somewhere and they don’t have no washcloths, I’ll be feeling like people are dirty.10‘Heal Your Body’I’ve read the Louise Hay book “Heal Your Body” at least four or five times. I’ve been sick a few times. We all been sick here and there. The book has helped me to talk to my body and learn what’s affecting me, why I’m acting the way I am and why I got sick. It was very helpful to me. More