“...people are going to want to see actors they recognize.”
You’re looking backwards. Do you think that they cannot conjure up a new virtual star? When people see that new, fake AI star in 20 or 30 films, what keeps that star from being as big as John Wayne, Tom Cruise, or Merrily Monroe?
In 50 or 100 years, nobody will recognize those old real-people stars except in “classic films.” In fact, there will probably come a time when people don’t even want to see real people acting.
See Rei from William Gibson’s Idoru, 1996.
I can’t stand the bloviated idiocies that come from the present line of other-peoples-words-speakers, so why not virtual stars?
In fact who needs Hollywierd? Compose your own plot and let Generative AI do all the translation to “film.”
These guys are relics squabbling over the last crumbs of their dead industry.
Across multiple posts on several platforms, this woman has racked up hundreds millions of views and is one of the biggest stars on social media. (Click pic for SFW video as she also provides plenty of NSFW content)
Mike Judge said Idiocracy was 500 years away. It happened in less than 20.