From Yahoo:
“Hollywood actors strike: Here's how your favorite movies and
TV shows will be affected”
Hollywood has ground to a halt. Despite a deadline extension
and the last-minute arrival of a federal mediator, late-night negotiations on
Wednesday between actors and producers broke down without a new deal. On
Thursday morning, leaders of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of
Television and Radio Artists huddled and cast the inevitable, unanimous vote
for a strike to begin at 12:01 a.m. on Friday. The official word came shortly
after noon via a press conference streamed on YouTube. "Union members
should withhold their labor until a fair contract can be achieved," stated
chief SAG-AFTRA negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, adding the studios and
streamers "have left us with no alternative." That means the thicket
of picket lines will get an influx of famous faces on Friday morning (or even
sooner for Bob Odenkirk), with actors joining writers in a massive work
stoppage. It is the first time since 1960 that Tinseltown's actors and writers
are on strike at the same time.
What they're saying Fran Drescher, the former Nanny star who is now president of
SAG-AFTRA representing 160,000 performers across media formats, called the
Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers "a greedy entity"
during the press conference. In a statement earlier Thursday, she blasted the
AMPTP offer as "insulting and disrespectful." "SAG-AFTRA
negotiated in good faith and was eager to reach a deal that sufficiently
addressed performer needs, but the AMPTP's responses to the union's most
important proposals have been insulting and disrespectful of our massive
contributions to this industry," Drescher said. "The companies have
refused to meaningfully engage on some topics and on others completely
stonewalled us. Until they do negotiate in good faith, we cannot begin to reach
a deal." Meanwhile, AMPTP tried to cast blame on the actors.
"We are deeply disappointed that SAG-AFTRA has decided to walk away from
negotiations," said the group, which includes movie studios, broadcast TV
networks and streamers. "This is the Union's choice, not ours. In doing
so, it has dismissed our offer of historic pay and residual increases,
substantially higher caps on pension and health contributions, audition
protections, shortened series option periods, a groundbreaking AI proposal that
protects actors’ digital likenesses, and more. Rather than continuing to
negotiate, SAG-AFTRA has put us on a course that will deepen the financial
hardship for thousands who depend on the industry for their livelihoods."
Hours after a strike was declared, the AMPTP reiterated that statement and
said it had offered "the highest percentage increase in minimums in 35
years," "a requirement for performer's consent for the creation and
use of digital replicas or for digital alterations of a performance" and
more.
How we got here SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP have been trying to reach an agreement on
a new contract. The current one had initially been set to expire June 30, with
the deadline then extended until July 12 at 11:59 p.m. PT. "The parties
will continue to negotiate under a mutually agreed upon media blackout,"
they groups said in a statement obtained by Yahoo. "Neither organization
will comment to the media about the negotiations during the extension."
On Wednesday, a federal mediator was dispatched in a Hail Mary attempt to
find mutually agreeable terms as the midnight deadline loomed closer. As
recently as June 24, Drescher told members that union representatives were
having "extremely productive negotiations that are laser focused on all of
the crucial issues you told us are most important to you. And we're standing
strong and we're going to achieve a seminal deal." She sounded less
hopeful later that week on Good Morning America, acknowledging that there was
no progress in some areas. (Drescher came under fire from her peers last
weekend when she flew to Italy for a Dolce & Gabbana fashion event with the
Kardashians amid the contentious negotiations.) In perhaps one of the
most sobering signs that a strike was highly likely, leaders from SAG-AFTRA
held a conference call with top Hollywood publicity agencies on Monday, bracing
them for a work stoppage. "It would be a miracle at this point" to
reach a deal by Wednesday night, one producer told Variety. Also per
Variety, there were "major differences" on a number of issues, including
the use of artificial intelligence, since last month. Negotiations between the
sides began May 31.
What do the actors want from the studios and networks? The actors want better overall
salaries and job protection, including the regulation of AI and increased
residuals from streaming, the way many of their performances are now delivered
to consumers. On June 27, Meryl
Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Quinta Brunson, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Rami Malek,
Elliot Page and nearly 2,000 more members sent an internal letter to Drescher
and union leaders demanding that they press for a "seismic
realignment" of working conditions, including minimum pay rates,
exclusivity clauses, residuals when their work is streamed or used to train AI,
as well as regulation of the practice of self-taped auditions. "We
want you to know that we would rather go on strike than compromise on these
fundamental points, and we believe that, if we settle for a less than
transformative deal, the future of our union and our craft will be undermined,
and SAG-AFTRA will enter the next negotiation with drastically reduced
leverage," they wrote. Days before the letter was sent, members had
voted overwhelmingly in favor of striking — a whopping 98 percent of the 65,000
members who voted — if a deal wasn't reached by the deadline. The idea of a
strike exploded in popularity after the star-studded declaration, and, by
Wednesday, more than 1,000 members, including Pedro Pascal, Charlize Theron and
Drescher herself, had signed on. The studios, meanwhile, are looking to
stay profitable. Officials at Netflix, for example, announced in June that the
company would lay off 300 employees amid slower revenue growth.
How is this related to the the writers strike? It's separate, although the writers,
who went on strike May 2 after contract talks collapsed between their union,
the Writers Guild of America, and AMPTP, are asking for some of the same things
as actors. They're mostly seeking higher pay, especially amid changes in how
people consume content and how that content is created. A big issue for them is
that streaming has prompted an industry shift. Traditional residuals — a
writer's compensation when you watch their show — are drying up. Shows also now
go into production in shorter spurts, which means that some writers struggle to
cobble together a steady income. The writers also wanted guarantees that shows
would employ a specific number of writers for a specific amount of time, rather
than what's known as "mini rooms" for writers, and that their jobs
would be protected from being taken over by AI. So it's not directly
related, but it illustrates the state of the entertainment industry, which,
like the rest of the world, is still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gone are the days of a broadcast TV series that airs once a week for 20-plus
weeks, now replaced by a streaming show that might have eight episodes that
drop all at once, which, of course, affects the cast and crew. And this
has real-world consequences for the people who write those jaw-dropping
episodes and movies. Take actress Rebecca Metz (TV's Shameless and Better
Things), who told Agence France-Presse on June 28 that, in the last few years,
she's seen her residuals shrink to a "tiny fraction" of what they
used to be, because streamers often pay flat rates to performers, rather than
rates based on a program's popularity. So, someone who plays a minor character
in a show you've never heard of earns the same in these residuals as someone
on, say, a hit like Hulu's Only Murders in the Building. "When
we're not working for a good stretch, all of a sudden we're worried about
qualifying for our health insurance," Metz told the news outlet.
OK, so what does the actors strike mean for my favorite shows
and upcoming movies? It's
definitely not good. If there's any upside it's that, since writers were
already on strike, many productions had shut down anyway. Those include
Saturday Night Live, which ended its season early, and scripted shows like
Stranger Things, Hacks and Cobra Kai, as well as movies, such as Marvel's
Blade, so there won't be too drastic of a change in the immediate future.
However, there are shows and movies that had been written before the writers
went on strike that will now be unable to film without actors. Films in
production, including Deadpool 3 with Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, Ridley
Scott's Gladiator 2 and the video game sequel Mortal Kombat 2, immediately
halted. In the short-term, a lot of shows have already been filmed and
are in the can, but audiences would still see changes like a possible delay of
the Emmy Awards, which are currently scheduled for Sept. 18, until November or
perhaps even January. (Because what would TV's annual awards fete be without
the casts of Succession, The Last of Us, Abbott Elementary and The Bear?) The
annual fan fair that is Comic-Con International, remains scheduled for July
20-23 in San Diego, but is shaping up to be a bust, with no top stars planning
to attend to hype their would-be blockbusters. A strike also means
actors will stop promoting their projects through these kinds of appearances,
which will likely leave the entertainment news industry, as well as talk shows,
at a loss. Several studios had tried to cram in as many press junkets as
possible in the weeks leading up to the strike so outlets could bank
interviews. Universal moved up the London premiere of Oppenheimer by an hour on
Thursday so actors could attend before the strike was called (the cast,
including Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon and Emily Blunt managed to walk the red
carpet but exited before the screening started), while Disney had contingency
plans to turn this weekend's premiere of Haunted Mansion from a star-studded
event at Disneyland to a fan-focused celebration instead. Meanwhile,
organizers of the upcoming Venice and Toronto film festivals, typically glitzy
affairs with A-list red carpets and movie premieres that set the stage for the
awards season, are scrambling. Also, an actors strike will likely affect
our choices of movies and TV shows for years to come, as productions shut down
and planned projects stack up.
Not everything will shut down Because the labor action only
involves actors working under the TV/streaming and theatrical contract there is
one type of show that will still go on: unscripted programs — aka reality TV —
which don't rely on SAG or WGA members, will be allowed to shoot, so Vanderpump
Rules fans should be happy. Other performers, including commercial
actors, interactive entertainment and video games, and audiobook voice artists,
will be unaffected. Another exception is HBO's Game of Thrones prequel
series, House of the Dragon. The show will continue to film as planned, because
the mostly U.K. actors are members of another union, Equity, whose members
"aren't legally allowed to strike in solidarity with the U.S. union."
Members were reminded of this rule hours before the strike. "A
performer joining the strike (or refusing to cross a picket line) in the U.K.
will have no protection against being dismissed or sued for breach of contract
by the producer or the engager," Equity reminded members. "Likewise,
if Equity encourages anyone to join the strike or not cross a picket line,
Equity itself will be acting unlawfully and hence liable for damages or an
injunction."
How long will this last? In their press conference announcing the strike,
leaders of SAG-AFTRA said the strike would last until a "fair contract can
be achieved." While no one knows exactly how long that will take,
we can get an idea from the handful of previous times that actors have gone on
strike. The most recent was in 1980, when a work stoppage lasted about four
months as performers sought to be compensated for "Pay-TV, video disc and
video cassettes," and in 2000. The Los Angeles Times reported then that
actors wanted higher payments for commercials and to no longer be paid a flat
fee for making ads that aired on cable. They wanted to be paid in residuals,
just as they were with shows. "The actors also want to address the
fledging issue of how they will be paid when ads run on the Internet," the
newspaper noted. The double strike makes the situation especially dire
for pop culture disciples.
^ It seems everyone involved in all of this: the TV Studios,
the Movie Studios, the Writers and the Actors/Actresses all only want to make
money and not art or entertainment. With all the Movies and TV Shows out there I
will be fine watching others things until they get their acts togethers. ^
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