Major Hollywood studios have agreed to adjust their language on artificial intelligence as they move closer to a contract agreement to end the 117-day SAG-AFTRA strike.
Union negotiators met with leaders of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers Monday night. At the meeting, both sides appeared to have resolved some of the outstanding issues surrounding AI, which has become the central theme of talks over the past ten days.
SAG-AFTRA leaders will meet with the union’s bargaining committee this afternoon. The hope is that recent advances in AI will be enough to seal the deal.
The union issued a statement Monday afternoon saying there remained disagreements on “several key issues,” including AI. The union presented its latest formal proposal to the AMPTP on Monday morning after completing a 12-hour day on Sunday.
Aside from AI, the union was still working on a mechanism to distribute a new bonus on streaming residuals. Studios have offered to give actors a 100% bonus on their standard streaming balance if they appear in one of the most-watched shows on a platform.
The deal also includes a significant increase in floor prices, which the studios are calling the largest increase in 40 years. It is expected to be in the range of 7 to 8% in most cases – less than the 11% that SAG-AFTRA has sought, but higher than the 5% that the AMPTP has agreed to in agreements with the authors’ unions and Directors agreed.
The AMPTP issued its “last, best and final” offer on Friday. On Saturday, a large group of CEOs held a Zoom meeting with Fran Drescher, SAG-AFTRA president, and Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, chief negotiator, to encourage them to accept the deal.
Studios have warned that a deal to save some of the broadcast television programming is imminent. As the days went by, more and more feature films were postponed.
It was not yet clear whether the changes agreed to Monday would receive approval from the union’s negotiating committee.
The union is said to have reached a common agreement on certain sensitive AI issues, such as how to handle AI consent in the event of an actor’s death. But the union didn’t get every item on its list.
The AMPTP has committed to continuing to meet to discuss AI over the next two and a half years until the next negotiation as the technology advances.
(Cynthia Littleton contributed to this report.)