LOS ANGELES: While screenwriters are busy back at work, film and TV actors remain on picket lines, with the longest strike in their history hitting the 100-day mark on Saturday after talks broke off with studios. Here’s a look at where things stand, how their stretched-out standoff compares to past strikes, and what happens next.
TALKS FAILED
Hopes were high and leaders of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists were cautiously optimistic when they resumed negotiations on Oct. 2 for the first time since the strike began 2 1/2 months earlier.
The same group of chief executives from the biggest studios had made a major deal just over a week earlier with striking writers, whose leaders celebrated their gains on many issues actors are also fighting for: long-term pay, consistency of employment and control over the use of artificial intelligence.
But the actors’ talks were tepid, with days off between sessions and no reports of progress. Then studios abruptly ended discussions on Oct. 11, saying the actors’ demands were exorbitantly expensive and the two sides were too far apart to continue.
“We only met with them a couple of times, Monday, half a day Wednesday, half a day Friday. That was what they were available for,” SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said soon after the talks broke off. “Then this past week, it was Monday and a half a day on Wednesday. And then ‘Bye bye.’ I’ve never really met people that actually don’t understand what negotiations mean. Why are you walking away from the table?”
The reasons, according to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, included a union demand for a fee for each subscriber to streaming services.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, one of the executives in on the bargaining sessions, told investors on an earnings call Wednesday that “This really broke our momentum unfortunately.”
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
The actors are in unscripted territory, with no end in sight. Their union has never been on a strike this long, nor been on strike at all since before many of its members were born. Not even its veteran leaders, like Crabtree-Ireland, with the union for 20 years, have found themselves in quite these circumstances.
As they did for months before the talks broke off, members and leaders will rally, picket and speak out publicly until the studios signal a willingness to talk again. No one knows how long that will take. SAG-AFTRA says it is willing to resume at any time, but that it won’t change its demands.
“I think that they think that we’re going to cower,” Drescher said. “But that’s never going to happen because this is a crossroads and we must stay on course.”
The writers did have their own false start with studios that may give some reason for optimism. Their union attempted to restart negotiations with studios in mid-August, more than three months into their strike. Those talks went nowhere, breaking off after a few days. A month later, the studio alliance came calling again. Those talks took off, with most of their demands being met after five marathon days that resulted in a tentative deal that its members would vote to approve almost unanimously.
WHAT’S HAPPENING TO MOVIES AND TV SHOWS?
The return of writers has the Hollywood production machine churning again, with rooms full of scribes penning new seasons of shows that had been suspended and film writers finishing scripts. But the finished product will await the end of actors strike, and production will remain suspended on many TV shows and dozens of films, including “Wicked,” “Deadpool 3” and “Mission Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part 2.”
The Emmys, whose nominations were announced the day before the actors strike was called, opted to wait for the stars this time and move their ceremony from September to January — though that date could be threatened, too.
The Oscars are a long way off in March, but the campaigns to win them are usually well underway by now. With some exceptions — non-studio productions approved by the union — performers are prohibited from promoting their films at press junkets or on red carpets. Director Martin Scorsese has been giving interviews about his new Oscar contender “ Killers of the Flower Moon.” Stars and SAG-AFTRA members Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert DeNiro haven’t.
