Hollywood actors go on strike at midnight Thursday after negotiations with studios collapsed, joining film and TV writers who have been on strike since May and further exacerbating the production shutdown of dozens of shows and movies.
Hollywood studios are now facing their first double shutdown in 63 years, forcing them to halt many productions in the US and abroad. The strike will add to the economic damage of the writers’ strike by dealing another blow to an industry grappling with changes to its business.
Both SAG-AFTRA – Hollywood’s largest union, representing 160,000 film and television actors – and the Writers Guild of America (WGA), which represents screenwriters, are calling for basic and residual pay increases in the age of streaming TV, as well as reassurances that their work will not be replaced by artificial intelligence (AI).
The actors’ union announced at a news conference on Thursday that the strike would begin at midnight, after its national council voted unanimously to authorize the strike. The deadline to sign a new contract expired on Wednesday.
Fran Drescher, former star of “The Nanny” and president of SAG-AFTRA, called the studios’ responses to the actors’ concerns “insulting and disrespectful.”
“I am appalled by the way the people we do business with treat us,” Drescher said at the press conference at SAG-AFTRA headquarters. “I can’t believe, quite frankly, how far apart we are on so many things, like they claim poverty that they’re losing money left and right by giving hundreds of millions to their CEOs. It’s disgusting.”
The Film and Television Producers Alliance (AMPTP), the trade association that negotiates on behalf of Netflix, Walt Disney Co and other production companies, said it was “deeply disappointed that SAG-AFTRA has decided to abandon the negotiations” .
The group said it offered “historic salaries and residual raises” and “an innovative AI proposition that protects the digital likenesses of actors.” Actors fear that their digital images will be used without their permission or adequate compensation.
“Instead of continuing to negotiate, SAG-AFTRA set us on a course that will deepen the financial hardships of thousands of people who depend on the sector for their livelihoods,” the AMPTP said.
The strike of some 11,500 writers caused endless reruns of late-night television talk shows, shut down most of the fall television season’s production in the Northern Hemisphere, and disrupted work on big-budget films.
The closure of SAG-AFTRA, which represents everything from minor actors to Hollywood’s biggest movie stars, will effectively shut down the studios’ remaining U.S. scripted film and television productions.
It will also jeopardize many overseas shoots involving SAG-AFTRA talent, such as Paramount Pictures’ Gladiator sequel, which director Ridley Scott is filming in Morocco and Malta.
Source: Terra
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