John Cusack Slams Studio Greed, Calls AI a ‘Criminal Enterprise’: They’ll ‘Scan Extras, Own Their Likeness Forever and Eliminate Them’

As the SAG-AFTRA strike begins, John Cusack took to his Twitter account to slam studio greed. The actor shared a story about starring in “Say Anything,” Cameron Crowe’s classic 1989 teen romance about a mediocre high school student who falls for the class valedictorian after their graduation. According to Cusack, he received no percentage of the film’s box office gross and was then told by the studio that the movie lost $44 million. The actor remains dubious about the claim.

“The greed is almost a legendary comic trope,” Cusack wrote. “One fun fact – when I was a youngin- I did a film (with a boom box) and somehow I got points – net not gross. Never expected to see any money – but the film became quite famous – so about 10 years ago – I looked again at the financial statements they were obligated to report – and to my shock – they claimed they had LOST 44 million dollars on the film.”

“I thought wow, I almost bankrupted Fox! (not really),” Cusack added. “The film cost about 13 million to make – and money spent to release was minimal at the time – 30 years in – that film lost millions every year ! A neat accounting trick don’t ya think?”

SAG-AFTRA members arejoining the Writers Guild of Americain striking for fair compensation, making it a “double strike,” which hasn’t happened in Hollywood since 1960. The WGA has been on strike since May 2. SAG-AFTRA picketing officially begins July 14. Fair compensation and streaming residuals are some of the big topics in the strike, as is the rise of artificial intellgience.

“Studios wanna have extras work one day, scan them – own their likeness forever – and eliminate them from the business,” Cusack wrote about how the studios want to use AI to get rid of certain acting jobs. “Do you think they will stop with extras ? That’s what AI is – a giant Copyright identity theft.”

Cusack went on to say the studios are running a “criminal enterprise” and will claim in 10 years they had no idea background actors would be eliminated by AI. He posted his thoughts on Twitter while sharing the now viral video of SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher railing against the studios while the strike was being announced.

“We are the victims here. We are being victimized by a very greedy entity,” Drescher said about SAG-AFTRA. “I cannot believe it, quite frankly: How far apart we are on so many things. How [the studios] plead poverty, that they’re losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs. It is disgusting. Shame on them.”

See Cusack’s Twitter posts below.