Comment on this storyComment
The latest phase of negotiations between striking actors and Hollywood production studios was paused after the parties met on Wednesday, with both sides still far from agreement on issues such as artificial intelligence regulation and audience-based compensation.
The development dashes hopes that the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists – which represents tens of thousands of television and film actors – could quickly agree on a deal with the more than 350 studios controlled by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers will be represented after the AMPTP reached an agreement with striking writers last month.
Sharp. Funny. Pensive. Sign up for the Style Memo newsletter.
“It is clear that the gap between AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA is too great and the discussions are no longer moving us in a productive direction,” an AMPTP statement said late Wednesday. The two sides had met intermittently since October 2 after SAG-AFTRA called for a strike in July.
Studio executives and AMPTP officials said they offered protections that would require actors’ consent before their likeness is used or altered through AI-generated digital reproductions. At a Bloomberg event on Thursday, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said that the studios also offered actors a performance-based bonus program, but the union countered with an unworkable demand for “essentially a levy.” [streaming] Subscribers.”
The artists’ union, however, accused the AMPTP of using “bullying tactics” in a statement to members on Thursday, claiming studio managers misrepresented the status of the talks to put pressure on union negotiators.
SAG-AFTRA said that studios “will want to require ‘consent’ to use a cast member’s digital replica for an entire film universe (or any franchise project) on the first day of employment.”
“These companies refuse to protect artists from being replaced by AI, they refuse to raise their wages to keep up with inflation, and they refuse to share a tiny portion of the immense revenue that THEIR Generated work for them,” the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee said in the statement.
Another major point of contention has been SAG-AFTRA’s revenue-sharing proposal, which would increase actors’ pay based on the revenue generated from viewers streaming their projects. The AMPTP called the proposal an “unsustainable economic burden,” but SAG-AFTRA said the studios overstated the cost of the proposal, rejected it and refused to do anything about it.
In addition, the parties were unable to agree on general wage increases and remaining amounts – Royalty payments for Hollywood employees – for high-budget streaming productions.
Actors have been on strike since July 14, when they joined their fellow writers in picketing major studios like Netflix and Paramount. SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP returned to the negotiating table this month, just days after the studios reached a deal with the Writers Guild of America that has since closed.
At the Bloomberg event, Sarandos said he had hoped for a quicker resolution to the actors’ strike but remained confident one would be found.
“As long as we have steady, progressive conversations, it makes sense,” he said. “But what happened last night was neither steady nor progressive.”
Erica Werner contributed to this report.
More style stories on arts and entertainment
Check out 3 more stories