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Seth Rogen says the film studios and streaming giants are unable to get on the same page because they “hate each other” as the Hollywood writers’ strike enters its 100th day with no hint of an agreement.

Both actors and writers are on strike for the first time since 1960, bringing the film and TV industry to a standstill and wreaking financial havoc in Los Angeles.

Traditional film studios like Disney, Universal and Warner Brothers and streaming giants, like Amazon and Netflix, are represented in negotiations by the same body, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).

But Rogen, who is an actor, writer and executive producer, says they have hugely different priorities.

“The studios haven’t even spoken to each other, is what I’ve heard,” Rogen told Sky News.

“So not only does it seem as though the writers and actors have a great distance to go when it comes to the studios, I think the studios have a great distance to go, probably a greater one, when it goes to them getting on the same page.

A person holds a sign on the picket line of the writers' strike in Hollywood.
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A person holds a sign on the picket line of the writers’ strike in Hollywood

“These are people who hate each other. To think that Universal has the same priorities as Netflix is insane.

“What concerns me is that they will be completely unable to bring forth a coherent and unified proposal because of their own infighting and divergent priorities.”

Actors and writers are striking for a number of reasons, but dwindling pay and controls around Artificial Intelligence are the main sticking points.

‘If you need me, pay me’

Sheryl Lee Ralph, an Emmy nominated actress, says AI threatens creativity in filmmaking.

“If we can all be artificially generated, that’s frightening,” she tells Sky News.

Sheryl Lee Ralph, an Emmy nominated actress, says AI threatens creativity in filmmaking.
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Sheryl Lee Ralph, an Emmy nominated actress, says AI threatens creativity in filmmaking

“We need something that’s far more important. We need the art of human beings. I want to know, would William Shakespeare stand for this? I think not.”

But Ralph says she would consider selling her digital likeness for use after her death, provided she had given her consent and received compensation.

“If I die and somebody wants to scan my body before I die, they can scan it for a price to make sure that generations after me are not left out of whatever money somebody else makes on my image.

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Zoe Saldana backs actors’ strike

“I don’t want somebody to take my image, repurpose it, put another face on it and I get nothing from it.

“Just be fair. Compensate me. What did Diana Ross say? ‘If you need me, pay me.'”

‘Technology not the problem – it’s how it is used’

Flawless AI is one of the biggest AI companies in film.

They designed a system, called TrueSync, to provide a better dubbing solution for films translated into other languages.

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Actors’ strike: ‘We will not allow you to take away our dignity’

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TrueSync creates deepfake-style effects altering the mouth movements of actors to match the alternate dialogue being spoken.

Chief executive Nick Lynes recognises that AI in film faces a PR battle.

“I can understand why people are scared,” he says.

Chief Executive of Flawless AI, Nick Lynes. The company is one of the biggest AI firms in film. They designed a system, called TrueSync, to provide a better dubbing solution for films translated into other languages. TrueSync creates deepfake-style effects altering the mouth movements of actors to match the alternate dialogue being spoken
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Chief Executive of Flawless AI, Nick Lynes

“Generative AI is legitimately as powerful as people talk about, but we work very much in cooperation with all the stakeholders and we have done for a long time.

“Our view is that if any new creation has come from data born from other people’s existing creation, then the relevant consent and the relevant compensation needs to be arranged.

“I’m not sure technology is ever the bad guy, it’s how it’s being used.”

Strike may last well into the autumn

Justine Bateman, a writer and director, has been on the picket line most days of the strike.

The Hollywood writers’ strike has entered its 100th day, with no hint of an agreement around the corner.
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The Hollywood writers’ strike has entered its 100th day, with no hint of an agreement around the corner.

She views the debate in binary terms.

“I think it’s a zero-sum game,” she says.

“It’s using generative AI to make films or using people. When you’re talking about the greed that motivates people to use generative AI instead of humans, that’s what’s going to ruin this business.

“These generative AI models make little Frankenstein performances in which you can order up a character to look like Brad Pitt combined with Mickey Mantle and have them dance like Fred Astaire with a Spanish accent.”

This strike is already one of the longest – and hottest – in Hollywood history and many expect it to last well into the autumn, disrupting TV broadcast schedules and wrecking film promotion tours and the early part of the awards season.

It is a marathon, with no finish line in sight.

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Stalker who believed Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas was his aunt avoids jail

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Stalker who believed Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas was his aunt avoids jail

A man who stalked Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas for six years has avoided jail.

Kyle Shaw, 37, got a 20-month suspended sentence and a lifetime restraining order on contacting Ballas, her mother, niece, and former partner.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that he thought Ballas was his aunt and “began a persistent campaign of contact”.

“He believed, and it’s evident from what he was told by his mother, that her late brother was his father,” said prosecutor Nicola Daley.

The court heard there was no evidence he was wrong, and “limited evidence” he was correct.

Ms Daley said Shaw’s messages had accused Ballas of being to blame for the death of her brother, who took his own life in 2003 aged 44.

He also set up social media accounts in his name.

Shaw had pleaded guilty to stalking the former dancer between August 2017 and November 2023 at a hearing in February.

Incidents included following Ballas’s 86-year-old mother, Audrey Rich, while she was shopping and telling her she was his grandmother.

The court heard in messages to Mrs Rich, Shaw had asked: “Where’s my dad?”

Ballas was so worried for her mother’s safety that she moved her from Merseyside to London.

Shaw outside court on the day of his sentencing. Pic: PA
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Kyle Shaw outside court on the day of his sentencing. Pic: PA

In October 2020, Ballas called police after Shaw messaged her and said: “Do you want me to kill myself, Shirley?”

Posts on X included one alongside an image of her home address that warned: “You ruined my life, I’ll ruin yours and everyone’s around you.”

Another referenced a book signing and said: “I can’t wait to meet you for the first time Aunty Shirley. Hopefully I can get an autograph.”

The court was told Ballas’s niece Mary Assall, former partner Daniel Taylor and colleagues from Strictly Come Dancing and ITV’s Loose Women were also sent messages.

‘I know where you live’

On one occasion in late 2023, Shaw called Mr Taylor and told him he knew where the couple lived and described Ballas’s movements.

The court heard the 64-year-old TV star become wary of socialising and stopped using public transport.

Prosecutor Ms Daley said: “She described having sleepless nights worrying about herself and her family’s safety and being particularly distressed when suggestions were made to her that she and her mother were responsible for her brother taking his own life.”

Man accused of stalking Shirley Ballas
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Ballas has been head judge on Strictly Come Dancing since 2017. Pic: PA

Shaw cried and wiped away tears as he was sentenced on Tuesday.

The judge said the stalking stemmed from his mother telling him Ballas’s brother, David Rich, was his biological father.

“I’m satisfied that your motive for this offending was a desire to seek contact with people you genuinely believed were your family,” he said.

“Whether in fact there’s any truth in that belief is difficult, if not impossible, to determine.”

Kyle Shaw leaves Liverpool Crown Court, where he is charged with stalking Strictly judge Shirley Ballas.
Pic: PA
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Shaw pictured at court in February. Pic: PA

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Defence lawyer John Weate said Shaw had been told the story by his mother “in his mid to late teens” and had suffered “complex mental health issues” since he was a child.

He added: “He now accepts that Miss Ballas and her family don’t wish to have any contact with him and, importantly, he volunteered the information that he has no intention of contacting them again.”

Shaw, of Whetstone Lane in Birkenhead, also admitted possessing cannabis and was ordered to undertake a rehab programme.

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Gary Glitter made bankrupt after failing to pay £500k compensation to victim

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Gary Glitter made bankrupt after failing to pay £500k compensation to victim

Gary Glitter has been made bankrupt after failing to pay more than £500,000 in damages to a woman he abused when she was 12 years old.

She sued the disgraced singer, whose real name is Paul Gadd, after he was found guilty of attacking her and two other schoolgirls between 1975 and 1980.

Glitter, 80, was jailed for 16 years in 2015 and released in 2023 but was recalled to prison less than six weeks later after breaching his parole conditions.

A judge awarded the woman £508,800, including £381,000 in lost earnings and £7,800 for future therapy and treatment, saying she was subjected to abuse “of the most serious kind”.

The court heard she had not worked for decades due to the trauma of being repeatedly raped and “humiliated” by the singer.

Gary Glitter has lost a parole board bid to be freed from jail.
Pic:Met Police/PA
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Glitter was jailed for 16 years in 2015. Pic: Met Police/PA

Glitter was made bankrupt last month at the County Court at Torquay and Newton Abbot, in Devon – the county where he is reportedly serving his sentence in Channings Wood prison, in Newton Abbot.

Richard Scorer, head of abuse law at Slater and Gordon, the law firm representing the woman, said: “We confirm that Gadd has been made bankrupt following our client’s application.

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“As he has done throughout, Gadd has refused to cooperate with the process and continues to treat his victims with contempt.

“We hope and trust that the parole board will take his behaviour into account in any future parole applications, as it clearly demonstrates that he has never changed, shows no remorse and remains a serious risk to the public.”

Glitter was first jailed for four months in 1999 after he admitted possessing around 4,000 indecent images of children.

He was expelled from Cambodia in 2002, and in March 2006 was convicted of sexually abusing two girls, aged 10 and 11, in Vietnam where he spent two-and-a-half years in prison.

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His sentence for the 2016 convictions expires in February 2031.

Glitter was automatically released from HMP The Verne, a low-security prison in Portland, Dorset, in February 2023 after serving half of his fixed-term determinate sentence.

But he was back behind bars weeks later after reportedly trying to access the dark web and images of children.

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Paul Mescal and Barry Keoghan revealed in line-up for Sam Mendes’ four Beatles films

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Paul Mescal and Barry Keoghan revealed in line-up for Sam Mendes' four Beatles films

Paul Mescal and Barry Keoghan will play Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in the upcoming Beatles films – with a Stranger Things star also portraying one of the Fab Four.

The two Irish actors will be joined by London-born performers Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison.

The cast for the Sam Mendes project was revealed at the CinemaCon event in Las Vegas, with all four appearing on stage and taking a bow together in Beatles style.

Paul Mescal, Joseph Quinn, Barry Keoghan and Harris Dickinson stand onstage to promote the upcoming "The Beatles" movies during a Sony Pictures presentation.
Pic: Reuters
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(L-R) Mescal, Quinn, Keoghan and Dickinson appeared together at the announcement. Pic: Reuters

Mendes is making four interconnected films – one from the perspective of each of the band members – and they are all set to be released “in proximity” to each other in April 2028.

It marks the first time The Beatles and the families of John Lennon and George Harrison have granted full life story and music rights for a scripted film.

Playing McCartney is another big role for 29-year-old Mescal, who recently starred in the Gladiator sequel and was nominated for an Oscar in 2023 for Aftersun.

Barry Keoghan – who also got an Oscar nod for The Banshees of Inisherin – will portray the other surviving Beatles member, Ringo Starr.

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The Beatles
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Pic: PA

Meanwhile, Stranger Things star Joseph Quinn, who appeared with long hair as Eddie Munson in the fourth series, takes up the role of George Harrison.

Harris Dickinson has the challenge of stepping into the shoes of perhaps the most famous Beatle, John Lennon.

The 28-year-old recently starred in erotic thriller Babygirl with Nicole Kidman and also appeared in satire Triangle of Sadness.

Mendes told the industry audience at CinemaCon there is “still plenty to explore” despite the Beatles’ rise having being well chronicled.

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The Oscar-winning British director is known for films including American Beauty, First World War movie 1917, and Bond outings Skyfall and Spectre.

Sony Pictures boss Tom Rothman said the close release of all four films in three years’ time will be “the first bingeable theatrical experience”.

“We are going to dominate the culture that month,” he added.

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