Tyler Perry Halts $800M Studio Expansion Over Open-AI Concerns

Tyler Perry announced plans to halt an $800 million studio expansion due to concerns about Open-AI’s Sora.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the media mogul spoke on the collateral damage of the text-to-video model, saying,

“Being told that it can do all of these things is one thing, but actually seeing the capabilities, it was mind-blowing.”

Perry’s plans to expand the Atlanta-based 330-acre behemoth he opened in 2008 included the addition of 12 new soundstages. However, he fears that what AI is capable of doing to the lives of creatives in Hollywood would be worse than Mike making Sheila walk up that mountain in Why Did I Get Married?

“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.”

The concern from the magnificent Madea maker is interesting. In the past, he’s proudly praised his decision to not hire other writers for his projects while allegedly refusing to hire crew members in any of the industry’s unions.

Still, Perry is willing to ring the alarm on Open-AI because of genuine concern for what comes next. He went on to tell the outlet how he feels Hollywood should approach the problem, saying,

“I just hope that as people are embracing this technology and as companies are moving to reduce costs and save the bottom line, that there’ll be some sort of thought and some sort of compassion for humanity and the people that have worked in this industry and built careers and lives, that there’s some sort of thought for them.

The fairy godfather of Black actor jobs also admitted to using AI on two upcoming projects. So, we shall see.