Welcome to the premiere of ON THE LOT, a weekly newsletter about the biggest storylines in Hollywood, from red carpets to writers’ rooms. Every Friday, my colleagues and I at the Universal lot in L.A., 30 Rock in New York and beyond will deliver fresh reporting and analysis — and maybe most importantly, recommendations from industry insiders on what to watch over the weekend.
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In today’s edition: Hollywood labor talks (the sequel), what to make of Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni hurtling toward a very public trial, and which romance author is making a play for reality TV.
Got tips? (On the SAG-AFTRA contract negotiations or how to get a decent spot in line at Villas Tacos)? You can reach me at rebecca.keegan@nbcuni.com or on Signal at thatrebecca.82.
Artificial intelligence, real money
When actors and studios arrived at the bargaining table this week to start hammering out the next SAG-AFTRA contract, a key figure in the conversation was not in the room. And she never will be.
AI “actress” Tilly Norwood hasn’t booked a major studio role or landed a top agent. But she is made of computer code, and the possibility that she or other performers like her could soon take human actors’ jobs is enough of a threat that the studios and guild are discussing a proposal nicknamed the “Tilly tax.” The idea is that if studios want to hire a synthetic performer, they’ll have to pay a royalty to the union, something SAG-AFTRA’s lead negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland secured in the guild’s 2025 commercials contract, its pact with advertisers.
The “Tilly tax” is a sign of how quickly Hollywood has moved from treating AI as verboten (remember the uproar over “The Brutalist’s” use of AI to help Adrien Brody with his Hungarian accent?) to quietly accepting it as inevitable. It’s a phenomenon I started noticing this fall, when studios were willing to talk to me about their nascent AI initiatives, but only off the record. They were somehow both proud of their blossoming use of the tech — primarily to reduce costs and speed up post-production — and terrified of the blowback they might get.
As if Hollywood needed a reminder of how fast the tech is developing, an AI-generated fight between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise went viral this week, generated by a new AI model from Chinese company DeepSeek. It’s already drawn heat from the Motion Picture Association.”I hate to say it. It’s likely over for us,” screenwriter Rhett Reese posted on X.
When I spoke to ”Navalny” director Daniel Roher (whose “The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist” comes out in March) at Sundance, he described getting sent script notes recently from a studio executive that he was certain were AI-generated. “In my head I’m like, ‘I know he’s phoning it in.’ And for the rest of our working relationship, he’s always in that box,” Roher told me.
Though SAG won some AI protections in the deal that ended the industry-quaking 2023 actors strike, Tilly and her Dutch creator, Eline Van der Velden, had not yet arrived on the scene. Nor had Disney’s $1 billion partnership with OpenAI, Amazon’s internal AI studio, Lionsgate’s new AI officer or the Academy’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy about AI use.
Negotiations between the studios and the guild are expected to continue into next week amid a media blackout that is so far holding better than in 2023. SAG’s president, “Lord of the Rings” star Sean Astin, is now in the lightning rod role Fran Drescher previously held, and labor lawyer Greg Hessinger, a former SAG leader, now the voice of the studios, replaces longtime AMPTP president and oft-mocked villain of underemployed writers, Carol Lombardini. No word on who has replaced the heart-shaped plushie that Drescher regularly brought to the talks last time.
It never ends with us
When Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni stepped out of Magistrate Judge Sarah L. Cave‘s Manhattan courtroom after their closed door settlement hearing Wednesday, the two actors had plenty of reasons to find a resolution to their ugly yearlong legal battle. To recap: Lively filed a December 2024 complaint against Baldoni alleging sexual harassment and retaliation on the set of their film “It Ends With Us,” which Baldoni also directed. Their lawyers have been racking up billable hours ever since.
Consider where we are now: Lively and Baldoni’s once lucrative careers are on ice. The court filings have managed to make a public spectacle out of the private communications of Taylor Swift, Matt Damon, Sony Motion Picture Group CEO Tom Rothman, WME agent Warren Zavala — among others. A key question, as NBC News legal analyst Misty Marris put it to me, is, “How much is this about money and how much is it about making a point?”
Lively has positioned herself as speaking up for women, sexual harassment victims and whistleblowers who face reprisals. The documents and depositions unsealed in the case, however, portray Lively as someone with formidable allies, including her husband, “Deadpool” actor and entrepreneur Ryan Reynolds, megastar Swift and WME, one of Hollywood’s top agencies. “It’s hard for a lot of people to see an A-list celebrity who’s friends with Taylor Swift as a victim,” crisis PR expert Eleanor McManus told me. “People see this as a powerful Hollywood couple going up against a director.”
After investing so much of her public capital in the case, Lively may feel she has to see this through to the bitter end. That entails taking the stand, submitting to cross-examination by Baldoni’s attorneys and enduring months more public scrutiny while her next film, Lionsgate’s “The Survival List,” and new products from her Betty Buzz beverage brand and hair-care line Blake Brown Beauty wait on the shelves.
Baldoni, meanwhile, is mired in multiple related cases, including a breach of contract suit filed by his former publicist, Stephanie Jones, and lawsuits he has filed against insurers for failing to cover his legal fees.
Neither Lively nor Baldoni spoke to the media assembled outside the courthouse after their meeting Wednesday. When Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, was asked if reaching a settlement was his goal, he replied, “The goal is to win.” The trial is scheduled to begin May 18.
Ah, love
This Valentine’s Day weekend expect thirsty audiences to turn out to see Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi in what The Hollywood Reporter called an “unabashedly horny” version of “Wuthering Heights.” Warner Bros’ publicity department has instructed me to call director Emerald Fennell‘s treatment of Emily Bronte’s 178-year-old romance novel an “interpretation” rather than an “adaptation.” Whatever you call it, it’s gonna make them a ton of money, with an expected box office opening of more than $50 million.
Studios and streamers are aggressively mining the romance genre right now in ways that remind me of how they treated comic books in the early aughts, a topic I’ll delve into in a piece in coming days. For that story I interviewed Lauren Levine, “It Ends With Us” and “Reminders of Him” author Colleen Hoover‘s intrepid producer, about what she thinks is driving the boom and how long it’ll last. Levine also shared one fun tidbit with me about Hoover, which may tickle her avid fan base: the romance author is currently lobbying for a spot on the Peacock reality show “The Traitors.” From love to treachery. (Peacock declined to comment).
The hype
Why get your recommendations from an algorithm when you could get them from an Oscar nominee? I asked a few of this year’s Academy Awards contenders what they’re watching, reading and listening to.
“Zootopia 2” producer Yvett Marino is listening to Bad Bunny, because “he is an artist who exudes the best in us. I’m a proud Latina, and to see his global impact is deeply inspiring.”
“Sinners” costume designer Ruth E. Carter is reading “Assata: An Autobiography” by Assata Shakur and “Sydney Poitier: The Long Journey” by Carolyn H. Ewers because “the stories affirm that legacy is built not only by what we endure, but by how we choose to stand in the world.”
“Train Dreams” cinematographer Adolpho Veloso is listening to “Arriadin por Tu” by João Gomes, “some beautiful contemporary Brazilian music,” and watching “The Traitors,” a habit he picked up on the set of the Netflix period film, “so we’d have some other dramas to talk about.”
The dialogue
“When I heard the news, I was like, ‘This is gonna be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’” — The late actor James Van Der Beek, speaking about his colon cancer diagnosis, in his final interview with the “TODAY” show co-host Craig Melvin.
“Artists deserve representation that aligns with their values and supports their safety and dignity” — Artist Chappell Roan, announcing that she is parting ways with Casey Wasserman’s talent agency amid growing scrutiny on the mogul’s ties to convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.
“My theory was that we were gonna be sharks. The rest of the cast was like, ‘No, we’re gonna be frogs,’ And then we just see this bush moving, and we’re like, ‘What?’ And they go, ‘Nah, you guys are gonna be trees.’”— José Villanueva, a Bad Bunny superfan, on what it was like to play a bush at the Super Bowl.
That’s a wrap — see you next week!
