SAG-AFTRA members and supporters protest in New York City on July 18.
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Every labor dispute involves posturing and excessive language: one side denounces the other as evil incarnate and the other does the same—until an agreement is reached. But this time, as two major guilds face off against the studios, the anger is so great it’s hard to imagine how peace can be restored.
In the simplest terms, both the writers’ and actors’ guilds say the lawsuits are greedy and seek to destroy their livelihoods, while the lawsuits accuse actors and writers of ignoring the dire state of an industry still reeling from the pandemic recovering and struggling with streaming, not comprehending losses. SAG-AFTRA Members Reference Jumbo Compensation of Top Claims; The top suits indicate the huge compensation of the top SAG AFTRA members. (Barry Diller suggests that both should take a 25 percent pay cut.)
And it’s not just about studios versus actors and writers. Some top agents also seem angry – not at the studios, but at their own clients. “The WGA and [SAG-AFTRA] “Leaders are just not good,” says one. “I don’t think any of them understand the fragile state of our company. In the words of Logan Roy, ‘These aren’t serious people.'” (This person concedes that many agents are still bitter about the Writers Guild’s 2019 year they want to ban packaging fees and require agencies to to give up their affiliated production companies. “All the packaging money that was saved? Not a single dollar went to them,” says this agent. “The studios kept it. And.” [the writers] pay us commissions now.”)
If everyone is angry with everyone, how to fix this breach? Gone are the decades when MCA chairman Lew Wasserman was the godfather who could decide when enough was enough. At this point, there is no such player on the Hollywood firmament. “The one guy you would think [could do it] would be the guy who set himself on fire,” says a top studio executive, referring to Bob Iger’s scolding of the guilds in a CNBC interview during Allen & Co’s billionaire summer camp. “I love Bob, but this didn’t go well.” While the mass attack that followed may not have been fun, another source deeply involved in the conflict says, “I bet he’s relieved that he’s now been told to mind his own business concentrate” and he does not have to deal with the warring parties.
An equally influential executive at another studio says no Hollywood godfather can make a difference now. “Do you honestly think SAG would go after Lew Wasserman now?” he asks. “What gets you out of this isn’t that Lew Wasserman rose from the dead. The way out is to eliminate all that rhetoric, propaganda and over-emotionalism and just face the facts.”
But it is not at all easy to get clarity about the respective positions of the warring parties. Take the question of artificial intelligence. SAG-AFTRA explains that studios “want to be able to scan a background actor’s image, pay them half a day’s work, and then use someone’s likeness forever for any purpose without their consent.”
But a top studio executive says that’s “an utter untruth” and that the position of the Alliance of Film and TV Producers would give cast members the same protections over the use of their images that they already have in other contexts. In other words, the studios could only enter into one contract for the use of an image for one project. It seems the guild based its position on the belief that producers would certainly offer compulsory contracts that would give them free reign and simply refused to hire anyone who didn’t agree. That may be so, but one can hardly blame anyone for thinking that the studios have literally proposed a provision that allows them to do whatever they want with the background players forever.
The two sides can’t even agree on whether meetings have been canceled. Anthony Rapp, a member of the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee, said this had happened repeatedly in the days before the strike was called, and the AMPTP said it was “plainly untrue”.
Therefore, eliminating rhetoric and propaganda may not be that easy. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot going on behind the scenes, though. Sources say that both CAA’s Bryan Lourd and Endeavor’s Ari Emanuel, usually not best friends, have worked to get studio bosses to make peace with SAG-AFTRA — but not so much with the writers. Lourd and Emanuel declined to comment.
Another industry veteran with extensive negotiating experience is also committed to the same goal. This person’s hope is that Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) officials can mediate and arbitrate this epic fight. The FMCS is a neutral third party. The agency cannot force the parties to return to the negotiating table. But some in Hollywood believe that in a few weeks, when tempers have cooled, both sides will be ready to seek a solution.
has learned that Javier Ramirez – President Biden’s choice to be FMCS director – and Jimmy Valentine, a Glendale-based FMCS commissioner, have been having meetings with the parties for weeks. (In other words, AMPTP’s seemingly last-minute call for a match wasn’t as last-minute as it seemed.) Both men are agency veterans who have navigated more life-or-death situations than the talent-to-the Studios – like a work stoppage at the hospital that required relocating patients.
Whether this plan can work, of course, has yet to be decided. But this disgruntled agent has cold words of caution about what the industry will face if people don’t return to normal fairly soon. “The existential, real threat is TikTok and next,” he says. “What kids see as premium content is different and we’re fighting to get them to pay for it and watch. Film and television are in real competition for the first time. It can still be a great deal, but a storm is brewing.”
Katie Kilkenny contributed to this report.