Media mogul Tyler Perry says studio expansion 'indefinitely on hold' due to AI



Tyler Perry said that an around $800 million expansion of his studio is "indefinitely on hold" due to the possibilities offered by artificial intelligence, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

OpenAI's Sora model produces videos based on text prompts, and while this type of capability will likely revolutionize the content creation industry, opening a world of possibilities and cost savings, it will also likely lead to some people losing their jobs.

"I have been watching AI very closely and watching the advancements very closely. I was in the middle of, and have been planning for the last four years, about an $800 million expansion at the studio, which would've increased the backlot a tremendous size, we were adding 12 more soundstages. All of that is currently and indefinitely on hold because of Sora and what I'm seeing. I had gotten word over the last year or so that this was coming, but I had no idea until I saw recently the demonstrations of what it's able to do. It's shocking to me," Perry said, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

"I think of all of the construction workers and contractors who are not going to be employed because I'm not doing this next phase of the studio because there is no need to do it," he said.

Perry noted that AI could enable him to avoid traveling to film at locations because a text prompt can be used to generate a desired scene.

"I no longer would have to travel to locations. If I wanted to be in the snow in Colorado, it's text. If I wanted to write a scene on the moon, it's text, and this AI can generate it like nothing. If I wanted to have two people in the living room in the mountains, I don't have to build a set in the mountains, I don't have to put a set on my lot. I can sit in an office and do this with a computer, which is shocking to me," he noted.

"It makes me worry so much about all of the people in the business. Because as I was looking at it, I immediately started thinking of everyone in the industry who would be affected by this, including actors and grip and electric and transportation and sound and editors, and looking at this, I'm thinking this will touch every corner of our industry," Perry said, according to the outlet.

Sora has not yet been rolled out to the general public. "Sora is becoming available to red teamers to assess critical areas for harms or risks. We are also granting access to a number of visual artists, designers, and filmmakers to gain feedback on how to advance the model to be most helpful for creative professionals," OpenAI notes on its website.

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Delano Squires: Tyler Perry, Colin Kaepernick, BLM, and the 80/20 rule can save America from communism



Black American movie mogul and Oprah Winfrey bestie Tyler Perry could do his country a favor by scripting a remake of his comedy-drama box office hit "Why Did I Get Married."

The sequel — "Why Did I Go Marxist" — would feature NFL quarterback-turned-activist Colin Kaepernick along with the leaders of Black Lives Matter and would use communist Cuba to further explain Perry's 80/20 rule of marriage. The 80/20 rule exposes the folly of diminishing the 80 percent of your marriage that works in pursuit of the 20 percent that frustrates you.

Yes, Kaepernick has no acting experience and seems a bit of an introvert. He mostly speaks in tweets and Instagram posts. But he's perfect for the part. Kaepernick is one of the most important figures in American culture over the last 20 years. His national anthem protest inspired a generation of athletes and entertainers to use their platforms to disparage the country that allows their success. His BLM co-stars tricked an entire country into believing they actually care about justice for dead black men and pressured the NFL, NBA, Big Tech, and Fortune 500 companies to donate millions and parrot their talking points.

Out-of-the-closet Marxists, Kaepernick and BLM love Cuba and Fidel Castro, see the world through the lens of oppressed and oppressor classes, call for the abolition of police and prisons, and believe the Fourth of July celebrates white supremacy. Kaepernick once spoke out against oppression while wearing a Castro T-shirt, and BLM's response to Cubans protesting their government today after decades under a communist regime is to blame the United States.

The jokes and hypocrisy write themselves. In Cuba and Hong Kong, people seeking freedom are using our flag as a symbol of hope. Juxtapose that with how Kaepernick, BLM, and other elites denounce our flag as a symbol of oppression.

It's the 80/20 rule applied to politics and culture. The most privileged Americans seem perpetually unsatisfied with the 80 percent America gets right. People who fall victim to this way of thinking abandon a great relationship in search of a perfect one and end up with neither. It also paves the way for someone else to come in and shower the spouses they abandoned with the love and appreciation they desire.

Americans who live in a country with laws that protect speech, religion, private property, and the right to protest publicly pine for the idea of socialism because they see it as the only antidote to social inequality. They seem to believe that USA stands for "Utopian States of America."

The people who live under communism and authoritarian regimes want the freedoms these Americans take for granted because they know that misery is the only thing equally distributed when the government has total control over your life.

The inability of cultural elites to appreciate what they have — an alluring mix of ingratitude and envy — is one of the enduring phenomena animating American political and cultural discourse. The country's most important institutions, from the federal government to Hollywood, are being run by people who seem to have contempt for the country, its history, and many of its citizens.

When people in other countries believe they are being oppressed by their government, attacked because of their ethnicity or religion, or ground down by an unfair economic system, they leave their home in search of better opportunities. When people think that a particular institution — whether a school or company — treated them poorly, they tell people they care about to stay away. One indication of the insincerity of America-hating elites is that they do the opposite of what you would expect — they stay in a place they claim is oppressing them, and they encourage other people of color from around the world to come to a country they claim hates them.

The only way to get out of this tailspin is to appreciate what we have here, even as we strive to make it better. The generations that came before us showed us the way. You don't have to lie about history or gloss over problems today in order to acknowledge the privilege of living in America. That's how most people around the globe relate to their countries. Citizens of other nations may have issues with their national government, but they still exhibit national pride, publicly declare their love of country, and respect their national symbols. I hope our elites will embrace a similar approach, because no one thrives in any environment — whether a family, community, institution, or marriage — that they hate.

Perry provided a valuable lesson at the end of his film. The husband who left his overweight wife for her best friend finds himself trying to get back into her good graces after he sees how much better she looks since their divorce. That should be a warning to Kaepernick and his BLM comrades that the "20" they're chasing after isn't nearly as good as the "80" they want to leave.
Tyler Perry Stuns Oscars With Powerful Rebuke Of Hate

Tyler Perry Stuns Oscars With Powerful Rebuke Of Hate

'I refuse to hate someone because they're a police officer. I refuse to hate someone because they are Asian. I would hope that we would refuse hate.'

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Tyler Perry in viral Oscars speech includes police in list of groups he refuses to hate — and leftists don't like that one bit



Film director Tyler Perry is making waves in the wake of his speech at this year's Academy Awards decrying hatred — including hatred of police officers.

And some leftists are fuming bigly about it.

What are the details?

In his acceptance speech Sunday for the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, Perry shared with the audience that his mother taught him to "refuse hate" and to "refuse blanket judgment."

"And in this time, with all of the internet and social media and algorithms and everything that wants us to think a certain way, the 24-hour news cycle, it is my hope that all of us would teach our kids, and I want to remember: Just refuse hate. Don't hate anybody," he said.

Perry continued: "I refuse to hate someone because they are Mexican, or because they are black or white or [LGBTQ]. I refuse to hate someone because they are a police officer. I refuse to hate someone because they are Asian. I would hope we would refuse hate."

He added that he's dedicating his award to "anyone who wants to stand in the middle. No matter what's around the walls, stand in the middle. Because that's where healing happens, that's where conversation happens, that's where change happens. It happens in the middle."

"Refuse hate."Tyler Perry accepts Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award "I refuse to hate someone because they are Mex… https://t.co/hckTjpV7Oe
— ABC News (@ABC News)1619404304.0

'F*** cops'

As you might guess, more than a few leftists who caught wind of Perry's words took issue with him including police among the groups of people he refuses to hate — particularly given the social climate following deaths of black men at the hands of police in Minneapolis and Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.

  • "Yikes really just slipped that cop propaganda in and thought no one would notice," one commenter said.
  • "I loved the speech," another user noted. "Until he mentioned not hating cops. F*** cops."
  • "Hey dips**t," another commenter told Perry. "No one chooses to be Mexican, black, Asian, or LGBTQ. They are hated for absolutely no reason except for living. Cops choose their profession and know exactly what they're getting into beforehand."
  • "In Tyler Perry's world, cops are the oppressed, rather than the ones doing the oppressing," another user observed.
  • "I'm with him except for 'police officers,'" another commenter said. "I hate them. I hate ALL of them. I return what I'm given. They give us hate, so I'm returning the hate."
  • "They kill POCs and White people un-proportionately too casually, and it goes unpunished," another user declared. "I don't give a f*** about them feeling 'oppressed,' excuse my French."
  • "Once again, Malcolm X was right in 1963 about regarding these unconscious idiots as activists for our oppressed community," another commenter said.
  • "Nah man...a previous winner highlighted the cops kill 3ppl a day on average, of which the majority are black and brown," another user wrote. "He said in his [speech] to stop killing us. Was Tyler Perry not paying attention?"

The latter commenter presumably was referring to the words of director Trayvon Free after he won, with director Martin Desmond Roe, Best Live-Action Short for "Two Distant Strangers," which is about police brutality.

Free in his acceptance speech said, "Today, the police will kill three people, and tomorrow, the police will kill three people, and the day after that, police will kill three people, because on average, the police in America every day kill three people, which amounts to about 1,000 people per year," Deadline reported.

He added that "those people happen to disproportionately be black people," the outlet said.

Anything else?

Perry in his acceptance speech also recalled an interaction with a homeless woman some years back as he was leaving a studio he was using for production.

He said he reached into his pocket to give her some money, but she said, "Excuse me, sir, do you have any shoes?" Perry said the woman's request "stopped me cold because I remember being homeless and having one pair of shoes, and they were bent over at the heels."

So Perry said he brought the woman into the studio's wardrobe department, where the woman chose a pair of shoes — and then looked up with tears in her eyes.

"She said, 'Thank you, Jesus — my feet are off the ground,'" Perry recalled her saying, adding that she also said she was concerned Perry would hate her for asking for shoes.

"I'm like, 'How can I hate you when I used to be you?'" he shared, adding that he couldn't possibly hate her, particularly when his mother — who taught him to refuse to hate — went through so much heartache in the the Jim Crow South and during the civil rights movement.

Watch: Atlanta Police Give Residents Kroger’s Supermarket Gift Cards Donated by Tyler Perry

Multimedia mogul and actor Tyler Perry addressed the civil unrest -- hallmarked by racial strife and anti-cop sentiments -- dominating the country by donating 1,000 Kroger gift cards to the Atlanta police, so they could, in turn, distribute them to members of the community.