Hollywood’s actors’ union approved a strike Thursday for the first time in 43 years, bringing in $134 billion The American film and television business has ground to a halt amid anger over pay and fears of a technology-dominated future.
Leaders of SAG-AFTRA, the union representing 160,000 television and film actors, announced the strike after negotiations with studios over a new contract broke down, with streaming services and artificial intelligence in the middle of the standoff. On Friday, actors will join screenwriters, who walked off the job in May, on picket lines in New York, Los Angeles and dozens of other American cities where scripted shows and movies are made.
Actors and screenwriters haven’t gone on strike together since the 1960s, when Marilyn Monroe was still acting in movies and Ronald Reagan was the head of the actors’ union. The dual strike brings together more than 170,000 workers against old-line studios like Disney, Universal, Sony and Paramount, as well as tech juggernauts like Netflix, Amazon and Apple.
“I was shocked at the way we were treated by the people we did business with!” Fran Drescher, the president of SAG-AFTRA, as the actors’ union is known, said at a news conference Thursday in Los Angeles. “How far apart we are in so many things. How they plead poverty, that they are losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs It’s disgusting. Shame on them!”
Shaking her fists with anger, Ms. Drescher that “the whole business model has been changed” by streaming and artificial intelligence is about to change it. “This is a moment in history – a moment of truth,” he said. “At some point, you have to say, ‘No, we’re not going to take it.'”
Many of the demands of the actors mirror those of the writers, who belong to the Writers Guild of America. Both unions say they are trying to ensure a living wage for job members, especially those who produce movies or television shows for streaming services.
Screenwriters fear that studios will use AI to develop scripts. Actors are concerned that technology can be used to create digital replicas of their likenesses (or that performances can be digitally altered) without payment or approval.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which is bargaining on behalf of Hollywood companies, said it worked to reach a reasonable deal at a difficult time for an industry that has been upended by the streaming revolution, accelerated by the pandemic.
“The union has regrettably chosen a path that will lead to financial hardship for countless thousands of people who depend on the industry,” the alliance said in a news release that outlined the 14 areas where studios will be offered “historic” contract improvements. That includes, according to the alliance, an 11 percent wage increase in the first year of the contract for background actors, stand-ins and photo doubles and a 76 percent increase in residual payments for “high budget” shows that flows abroad.
The alliance added in a separate statement: “We are deeply disappointed that SAG-AFTRA has decided to walk away from negotiations. This was the union’s choice, not ours.”
Behind the scenes, studio executives responded to Ms. Drescher in different ways. Some said they underestimated her ability to lead the sometimes fractious actors’ union — reducing her to little more than the cartoonish figure she played on “The Nanny” for six seasons in the 1990s. Others continue to mock him as giving an Academy Award-caliber performance at the union press conference.
Although Hollywood has been bracing for a writers’ strike since the beginning of the year — screenwriters have walked out eight times in the past seven decades, the most recent in 2007 — the unusual decision by the actors caught senior executives and producers off guard.
Actors last staged a major walkout in 1980, when the economic details of a nascent boom in home video rentals and sales were a sticking point. Their latest action is part of a resurgent labor movement, particularly in California, where hotel workers, school bus drivers, teachers and cafeteria workers have gone on strike for some time in recent months. .
The first sign of distress for the studios came in early June when about 65,000 members of the actors’ union voted to authorize a strike. Nearly 98 percent of voters supported authorization, a figure that barely exceeded the writers’ margin.
Still, negotiators in the studio entered the talks feeling hopeful. They were shocked when they saw the list of proposals from the union — it ran to 48 pages, nearly triple the size of the list they last negotiated in 2020, according to two people familiar with the proposals, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential conversations.
Then in late June, more than 1,000 actors, including Meryl Streep, John Leguizamo, Jennifer Lawrence, Constance Wu and Ben Stiller, signed a letter to the guild leadership, clearly declaring that “we are ready to strike. “
Hollywood studios will now have to navigate a two-front production war without a modern playbook to consult. There are many open questions, including whether the actors and the writers can demand that future negotiations with the studios be conducted side by side. One guild that will be excluded: the Directors Guild of America, which ratified the contract last month.
The actors’ walkout will give immediate grace to prominent writers, who have been walking picket lines for more than 70 days; the Writers Guild has yet to return to bargaining with the studios. Today, those picket lines tend to be noisy, star-studded spectacles — struggling thespians still trying to get a spot next to A-listers with $20 bodyguards million or more per film role.
The strikes are the latest major blow to an entertainment industry that has been rocked in recent years by the pandemic and sweeping changes in technology.
Hollywood studios have watched their share prices soar and their profit margins shrink as viewership for cable and network television — as well as box office returns — plummet in the wake of the explosive growth of streaming entertainment.
Many companies have made layoffs, as well as purging series from their streaming services, all in the name of trying to increase profit margins and satisfy die-hard investors. Studio executives have already put the brakes on ordering new television series last year as their streaming services continue to burn through cash.
In an interview with CNBC on Thursday morning, Disney’s chief executive, Robert A. Iger, said that given all the “disruptive forces” in the business, “this is the worst time in the world to add to that disruption.”
Barry Diller, the veteran media executive, said in an interview that the recent industry upheaval has caused anxiety for both sides.
“You have a complete change in the underlying economics of the entertainment business that it used to hold for certainly the last 50 years, if not the last 100 years,” he said. “Everything is basically balanced under the hegemony of the five major studios, and then, oh, my God, with the tech companies in Netflix, Amazon and Apple and the fast, changing things that came out of Covid. The result where you have a business that is completely upended.”
After the strike announcement, the union issued policies for its members. Along with not being able to work in front of the camera, they will not be allowed to promote current projects. That includes attending Comic-Con, film festivals and film premieres.
That means actors won’t be able to promote films during a crucial period for the summer box office, when big-budget films like “Barbie,” “Oppenheimer” and “Haunted Mansion” are released.
Some of those promotional opportunities have disappeared: Late-night shows like “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” and “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” only run repeat episodes during writers strike.
Viewers should notice the effects of the dual strikes in a few months. Unless there is an immediate resolution to the labor disputes, the ABC fall schedule, for example, will debut a nightly lineup of reality series and game shows — including “Celebrity Wheel of Fortune,” “Dancing With the Stars ” and “Judge Steve Harvey ” — as well as reruns of “Abbott Elementary.”
If the strikes last into the fall, blockbuster movies scheduled for release next summer, such as “Deadpool 3,” could be delayed.