Nolan will stop filmmaking during Hollywood strike

LOS ANGELES: Hollywood’s leading filmmaker Christopher Nolan has said he will not be making any more movies while writers and actors across the industry are on strike.

According to the BBC, the renowned director, writer and producer said, “this is not about me, this is not about the stars of my film.”

“This is about jobbing actors, this is about staff writers on television programmes trying to raise a family, trying to keep food on the table.”

On Thursday, stars Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon and Emily Blunt walked out of the London premiere of Nolan’s film Oppenheimer when the strike was announced.

Nolan said he felt “very fortunate with the timing”, as his film’s premieres were held just before the strike began, and Oppenheimer would not be affected by the industry shutdown.

The union, officially known as the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG-AFTRA, is demanding that streaming giants agree to a fairer split of profits and better working conditions.

They also want a guarantee that artificial intelligence (AI) and computer-generated faces and voices will not be used to replace actors.

SAG’s national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said that “they propose that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get paid for one day’s pay, and their company should own that scan of their image, their likeness, and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity.”

Meanwhile, the studios including Warner Bros and Netflix, claim to have “a groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors’ digital likenesses.”

Nolan is known in the industry for wanting his films to feel authentic rather than computer-generated. He famously left Warner Bros in favour of rival Universal to make Oppenheimer.