The Directors Guild and the studios have reached a tentative agreement on a new three-year deal. The deal includes wage increases and “a 76 percent increase in foreign arrears for the largest platforms,” according to the DGA.
The deal comes on the 33rd day of the Writers Guild strike and just four days before SAG-AFTRA sits down at the negotiating table with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers – and two days before the Monday deadline for SAG-AFTRA members to vote for or against permission to strike at 5 p.m. . Like the directors, the current contract between the actors and the studios expires on June 30th.
In a late-night statement, DGA said the new agreement with the AMPTP “makes major breakthroughs in managing the international growth of the entertainment industry, delivering significant gains in important commercial and creative rights while preserving the critical role of DGA directors and their… Teams affirmed.” ”
The preliminary agreement will be presented to the Guild National Board for approval at a special board meeting scheduled for June 6th. At that time, further details of the deal with the AMPTP will be released.
“We’ve struck a truly historic deal,” Jon Avnet, chairman of the DGA’s negotiating committee, said tonight. “It offers significant improvements for every director, assistant director, production manager, assistant director and stage manager in our guild. In these negotiations, we’ve made progress on wages, streaming residuals, security, creative rights and diversity, while also securing essential protections for our members on key new issues such as artificial intelligence – to ensure DGA members are not replaced by technological advances . Without the unity of DGA members this deal would not have been possible and we are grateful for the strong support from union members across the industry.”
According to the DGA, the new agreement includes the following:
- Wages and Perks: Breakthrough increases in wages and benefits, including a 5% increase in the first year of the contract, 4% in the second year and 3.5% in the third year. An additional 0.5% to finance a new parental allowance.
- Global streaming residuals: Significantly increase residuals for dramatic programs created for SVOD by securing a new residual structure to pay for foreign residuals. The result is a 76 percent increase in foreign residuals for the largest platforms, such that residuals for an hour-long episode over the first three years of issuance will now be approximately $90,000.
- Artificial intelligence: Groundbreaking agreement confirming that AI is not a person and that generative AI cannot replace the duties performed by members.
- Non-dramatic programs: Established the industry’s first terms and conditions for directors and their teams on non-dramatic (variety and reality) programming for SVOD. Improved residuals and for the first time, assistant directors and stage managers are now included in the residuals.
- High Budget AVOD Terms and Conditions. Achieved industry-first terms, creative rights protections, working conditions, and residuals for dramatic screenwriting projects made available for free to consumer streaming services such as Freevee, Tubi, and Roku. The production managers and deputy directors will participate in the remaining stocks.
- feature directors: Historical initial payment for the “soft preparation” months. Feature film directors currently perform free of charge prior to the start of the director’s official prep period.
- Episode Directors: For pay-TV and SVOD, Episodic Directors won extended paid creative post-production rights; and received an additional guaranteed day of filming for one-hour programs – the first additional day in more than 40 years.
- Reduction of hours: An unprecedented one-hour reduction in the Deputy Director’s working hours.
- Security: Delivered tangible safety advances, including the first-ever pilot program requiring the employment of dedicated safety officers; expanded safety training programs for directors and their teams, and a ban on live ammunition on set.
According to DGA, the agreement also saw increased studio transparency on remaining payment reporting, improvements in diversity and inclusion, the addition of Juneteenth as a paid holiday, and many other benefits for all categories.
In many ways, tonight’s deal is a surprise, more for its midnight timing than its timeliness.
As scheduled SAG-AFTRA talks drew nearer, whispers circulated around town this week that the DGA and AMPTP were close to an agreement. Contributing to these whispers was the DGA’s absence from the WGA West’s large May 26 “Unions Strike Back” rally at DTLA.
All of this comes after a series of twists and turns in Hollywood’s labor disputes, with DGA traditionally presenting its position to WGA first in negotiations earlier in the year, WGA voting nearly 98% to authorize a strike, becoming the first strike in 15-years accessed late May 1st, just hours before the writers’ contact with the studios expired.
Since then, there have been concerns on the picket lines and elsewhere that the studios have declined to resume talks with the WGA in hopes of setting up a repeat of the events of 2008. Back then, after the WGA had been on strike for weeks, the DGA struck a deal with the AMPTP that many writers then and now believe effectively ended their actions after 100 days.
This year, that story felt very present when Chris Keyser, Co-Chair of the WGA Bargaining Committee, a day after declaring that the studio’s divide-and-conquer era was over for the Tinseltown guilds, on March 2nd June made a kind of mark The Writers Guild released a video in which Keyser specifically noted, “If [AMPTP President] Carol Lombardini sees the negotiations with the DGA during the strike as a kind of trump card. She will find that her plan for 2007/08 does not belong in the negotiation room. it belongs in a museum. Any deal that gets this town back to work goes through the WGA directly, and there’s no getting around us.”
DGA’s tentative agreement tonight could put that claim to the test.
“This deal recognizes the global future of our industry and respects the unique and essential role of the directors and their teams in our journey into that future,” DGA President Lesli Linka Glatter said in a statement on Saturday. “As every new technology brings great change, this deal ensures that each of DGA’s 19,000 members can share in the success we are all creating together. The unprecedented profits from this deal are a credit to the excellent work, tenacity and preparation of our negotiating committee. I am so proud of the phenomenal leadership and dedication of Negotiations Chair Jon Avnet, Co-Chairs Karen Gaviola and Todd Holland, as well as our Chief Negotiator, National Executive Director Russ Hollander, and our 80-plus member Negotiations Committee. I am also incredibly grateful to the DGA staff who have worked tirelessly over the past year and a half to achieve this outstanding deal.”
“Every member of our union can be proud of the successes we have achieved in all areas,” added Hollander. “Significantly, and for the first time ever, global SVOD residuals are paid based on the number of international subscribers. The result is a 76% increase in foreign backlogs for the largest services. As our industry becomes more global, these increases are essential to ensure our members are valued and rewarded for the incredible work they do.”
Formal negotiations between the 80-member negotiating committee of the DGA and the AMPTP began on May 10th.
Dominic Patten contributed to this report