During a speech at the Cannes Film Festival, Penn spoke of his solidarity with the WGA as they continued to strike for fair wages and against the use of AI to write scripts, as more than a handful of producers and studios have been pushing for in recent months – in what some writers are calling a new way to cheat them out of their paychecks.
During a press conference for “Back Flies”, his newest film directed by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire about a young paramedic working alongside a veteran of the field in New York City, Penn broke from the topic to say “the industry has been upending the writers, actors and directors for a very, very long time. My full support is with the writers guild. There are a lot of new concepts that are being tossed about, including the use of AI. It strikes me as a human obscenity for there to be pushback on that from the producers.”
The actor and director also went on to refer to the Producers Guild as the “Bankers Guild”, insinuating that they cared about little more than lining their pockets with as much cash as possible, saying that they make it “difficult for so many writers and people in the industry who cannot work.”
And it looks like we can expect more workers in the film industry to stand up for their rights over the summer. Going forward, the WGA is no longer the only group looking to receive more fair treatment and compensation in Hollywood. The Directors Guild is also negotiating a new contract and the board of SAG-AFTRA, the actors union, has just recently voted to ask members for strike authorization if their new contract negotiations don’t go as hoped for.
So what’s next for Hollywood if these negotiations breakdown? Stay tuned.