Hollywood actors will join screenwriters on Thursday’s picket line after talks between major US studios and the powerful actors’ union collapsed. The industry is expected to suffer its worst paralysis in more than 60 years.
After more than four weeks of negotiations, the previous agreement expired at midnight on Wednesday evening with no hope of arbitration, actress Fran Drescher, president of the SAG-AFTRA union, said in a letter to members on Thursday.
Their positions are far too distant from those of the Alliance of Film and Television Producers (AMPTP), which brings together historical corporations such as Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery and Sony, and digital platforms such as Netflix, Amazon or Apple.
AMPTP’s reactions to the union’s key proposals have been offensive and do not respect our important contribution to the industry, the union, which represents 160,000 actors and other professionals in small and large businesses, wrote in a separate statement Thursday.
The union office must confirm the start of the strike on Thursday.
If they started this movement, the actors would join the screenwriters who stopped working in early May. This dual social movement, bringing together the faces and feathers of the film industry, would be a first in Hollywood since the 1960s.
The two industries are demanding an increase in their remuneration, at half-staff in the age of continuous broadcasts, streaming. They also want guarantees on the use of artificial intelligence to prevent AI from generating scenarios or cloning their voice and image.
No actors, no filming
The actors’ strike would be a blow to studio and streaming platform bosses.
Since May, the only productions that have decided to shoot have been based on the scripts already completed in the spring, without being able to modify them. This is particularly the case with the Amazon-funded Lord of the Rings prequel The Rings of Power. But without actors, the shooting just wouldn’t be possible.
Only a few talk shows and reality shows could be continued.
Actors also have the power to severely hamper the promotion of this summer’s blockbusters, such as Christopher Nolan’s much-anticipated “Oppenheimer,” whose London premiere on Thursday will be brought forward by an hour to give cast members a chance to see ahead of time interviews about a possible strike.
The lack of comedians on the red carpet would leave a huge void in California. Comic-Con, the big fair for American geeks and comic lovers, is scheduled to take place in San Diego without stars from July 20th.
Ahead of the strike, Disney said the launch of its new film, The Haunted Mansion, would be reduced to a private event for fans in the event of unrest over the weekend.
Even the September 18 Emmys (the TV equivalent of the Oscars) are under threat. According to the American press, the production is already considering postponing the event to November or even 2024.
In fact, no one knows how long the movement could last. Actors have not gone on strike since 1980. The last writers’ strike, in 2007-2008, lasted 100 days and cost the industry $2 billion.
An industry damaged by streaming
A double whammy would confirm the existential crisis that is currently plaguing Hollywood. In late June, hundreds of famous actors, including Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence and Ben Stiller, signed a letter declaring that their industry was at an unprecedented tipping point.
In the past decade, the advent of streaming has confounded actors’ and screenwriters’ residual compensation resulting from each rerun of a film or series.
These remunerations, which are attractive on television because they are based on the price of advertising, are significantly lower on streaming platforms that do not communicate their viewer numbers and pay a flat rate regardless of success.
Without this vital income to cover the periods of inactivity between productions, the many workers who do not have the status of actor or star author denounce the precariousness of their profession.
The rapid development of artificial intelligence that threatens to replace it only adds fuel to the fire. For example, Disney used AI to produce the credits for its new series Secret Invasion, which launched in June.