Michael Buckner/Deadline
UPDATE, 11:08 p.m.: After a busy weekend of negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP to finalize a new three-year contract, the striking actors’ union and the studios are backing off for the day.
In a letter sent to members this evening and received by deadline, SAG-AFTRA, led by Fran Drescher, said: “Over the course of the weekend we discussed all outstanding proposals, including AI, with the AMPTP.” The TV /Theatre bargaining committee of the 160,000-member union further stated: “Both parties will work independently on Monday and will agree again on scheduling at the end of the day.” Get involved and flood the picket lines in the morning. Make your voice heard.”
Currently, SAG-AFTRA is holding a week-long picket at all major studios in LA and NYC.
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👻 Check out our exciting weekly picket schedule with two spooky highlights: Solidarity Screamfest in New York, October 31st. and Day 111 Unity Picket in LA, November 1st. Let’s show them that our spirit of solidarity is unbreakable! 🎃🎭 #SayAftraStrong pic.twitter.com/BQ0EK8HaZw
– SAG-AFTRA (@sagaftra) October 30, 2023
In addition to negotiations over the role of AI in the industry, the two sides are said to continue to seek agreement on additional compensation through streaming shows. The AMPTP remained publicly silent today about what happened during the two days of talks and what might come next.
BEFORE, 3:53 PM EXCLUSIVE: SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP continued to communicate intermittently Sunday as they moved toward a possible agreement that could end the 108-day strike.
“There is optimism,” a guild source told Deadline today. “Looks like we’re in the final stages,” a senior studio source added.
Both sides expressed confidence that an agreement could be reached within a few days, but as previously mentioned, the situation remains uncertain.
Our understanding is that SAG-AFTRA and the studios have made “significant” progress in bridging their gap in so-called performance-based compensation for streaming shows and their casts.
Neither SAG-AFTRA nor AMPTP responded to requests for comment on today’s discussions.
Both sides’ negotiating teams – SAG-AFTRA Chief Negotiator and National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland and AMPTP President Carol Lombardini – spoke virtually several times throughout the day. Like yesterday, the studio’s four CEOs – Disney’s Bob Iger, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav and NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley – were not present on today’s Zoom calls.
There is a change in attitude among the studios, which went into the weekend “disappointed” by the guild’s proposal on Friday, and they want to be more optimistic as both sides see possible commonality this week.
“There’s still a list that needs to be worked through,” a knowledgeable insider told us about SAG-AFTRA’s intention to ensure fair balances of streaming revenue for the 160,000-member union, as well as artists’ likeness rights in terms of usage Studios to lower AI. The most difficult point of the current contract is the agreement between both sides on the actors’ streaming income.
Talks resumed on October 24 after studios suspended them for 12 days, with the majors offering an increase in minimum tariffs and higher bonuses based on the success of streaming content. As part of their WGA deal, the studios proposed a 7% increase in minimums, with SAG-AFTRA on Friday offering a self-described “comprehensive counterprice” that rose from an 11% increase to 9%. The studio’s performance-based metric came in response to SAG-AFTRA’s call for a 57-cent annual fee per subscriber on Oct. 11, which Sarandos called a “tax on subscribers” and “a bridge too far.”
With three major films with $1.5 billion in global box office alone disappearing from the 2024 calendar – Disney’s “Mission Impossible 8” and “Snow White” and Pixar’s “Elio” – studios are sweating it out , to resume worldwide gaming and television production, even though they have only just signed a contract with the WGA and the writers are already at work. Exhibition, which has suffered losses and accumulated huge debts during the pandemic, fears for its survival next year as its release calendar no longer aligns with tentpoles. The big starter title of the summer, Marvel Studios’ Deadpool 3, is 50% complete and will not be released the first weekend in May. The hope was that filming on the Ryan Reynolds-Hugh Jackman film would resume in January, although that goal and a new TV season remain in limbo with each passing day of the strike. Once the strike ends, there will be a scramble for actors between television and feature film projects. It wouldn’t be surprising if some backed out of their feature film commitments as their TV series could be in first place. With Wall Street long predicting a recession, the studios are hoping to use one-two punches to correct the $6.5 billion economic loss to the state of California.
Last Thursday evening, several prolific artists, including Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jon Hamm, Sarah Paulson, Chelsea Handler and Christian Slater, told the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee that they were willing to continue picketing until a fair deal was reached. This maneuver by the actors contradicted a Zoom call two weeks ago between SAG-AFTRA leaders and several awards season contestants, including George Clooney, Emma Stone, Robert De Niro and Ariana DeBose, who gave the guild $150 million over three years Dollars for Deposition offered a cap on union dues so that actors at the bottom of the call list would benefit first. SAG-AFTRA head Fran Drescher thanked Clooney, who led the effort, but said the offer was legally inconsistent with the union contract and had “no impact on the contract we are arguing about.”