Hollywood on the brink of shutdown for the first time in six decades

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Hollywood is on the brink of the first industry-wide shutdown in more than six decades after an actors’ union said talks with major studios have broken down and the 160,000 artists it represents will go on strike as early as Thursday. Writers can join in. ,

SAG-AFTRA, the union that represents television and film actors in Hollywood, said in a statement at 1 a.m. L.A. time that its negotiating board has recommended strike action after the midnight deadline for contract negotiations expired. voted unanimously for.

The strike action comes after a month of tense negotiations between Hollywood’s biggest union and major studios and streaming services over issues including actors’ remuneration for AI “digital doubles”. The expiry date of the previous three-year contract was extended till 12 July to allow negotiations to continue.

But on Thursday morning, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Decher and the union’s chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said film studios “are not ready to offer a fair deal on key issues”, and said their responses to the proposals ” haven’t been enough”.

The union’s national board is set to take a final vote on strike action on Thursday morning and strikes could begin shortly thereafter. The 11,500-member Writers Guild of America has been on strike since early May.

If the industrial action goes ahead, Hollywood will face a strike by both actors and writers for the first time since the 1960s, when they walked out over the amount TV networks paid them for movies. At the time, Ronald Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild, the predecessor to SAG-AFTRA.

“Despite our team’s dedication to advocating on your behalf, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (the group representing studios and streamers) has refused to acknowledge that the drastic changes in the industry and economy has had a detrimental effect on the people who labor for the studio,” the pair said. The last major actors’ strike was in 1980.

Negotiations between the film studio and the actors’ union have centered around the same issues that led to the writers’ walkout. The rules for compensation for films sold to streaming services and contractual guarantees regarding the use of artificial intelligence in movies and TV have proved particularly contentious.

“We are deeply disappointed that SAG-AFTRA has decided to walk away from negotiations. It is the union’s choice, not ours,” AMPTP said. “In doing so, it has expanded our offering of historic pay and residual increases, significantly higher limits on pension and health contributions, audition protections, shorter series option periods, an unprecedented AI proposition that protects the digital likeness of actors, and much more.” Rejected.”

Last month, more than 300 major Hollywood stars, including Jennifer Lawrence and Meryl Streep, wrote a letter to SAG-AFTRA leadership supporting possible strike action.

“We feel that our wages, our art, our creative freedom and the power of our union have all been undermined over the past decade. We need to reverse those trajectories,” he wrote in an open letter.

Nearly 98 percent of polled SAG-AFTRA members supported possible strike action when more than 60,000 performers were polled last month.