With the deadline looming, the actors’ union could announce a settlement with AMPTP, extend talks — or join the WGA in a strike this Friday night.
Union spokespeople declined to comment, citing traditional media blackouts during contract negotiations. But two people with knowledge of the talks told The Wrap that there’s a good chance Guild will announce an extension with AMPTP that will run beyond the Fourth of July weekend.
Such an extension would not be unusual, as the parties agreed to similar extensions during talks in 2014 and 2017. Before talks began, SAG-AFTRA leaders told TheWrap that their contract negotiations with AMPTP traditionally involved detailed discussions on a variety of terms. Number of actors, including stuntmen and background actors and others. If an extension is sought, it may be only to give the interlocutors time to work out the details.
Last weekend, the Guild released a video of President Fran Drescher and National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland expressing optimism about the progress made with AMPTP toward a deal.
Drescher said, “I just want to assure you that we are having an extremely productive dialogue that focuses on all of the important issues that you have told us are most important to you.” “And we’re standing firm and we’re going to get a significant deal.”
But the final phase of the talks is taking place in an atmosphere of intense labor mobilization and union solidarity not seen in Hollywood for decades. Earlier this week, a letter was published shared and signed by hundreds of SAG-AFTRA members, including A-listers like Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lawrence, calling for an unsatisfactory compromise on key issues such as consent and compensation for AI from the guild’s negotiating committee. Was asked not to. Artists Entertainment.
The letter read, “We hope you hear our message: this is an unprecedented inflection point in our industry, and what might have been considered a good deal in any other year is not enough.”
“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,” the letter continued. “We believe that, if we settle for anything less than a transformative deal, the future of our union and our craft will be weakened, and SAG-AFTRA will enter the next negotiations with vastly reduced leverage.”
Along with AI, SAG-AFTRA members are seeking stricter rules regarding the use of audition tapes, which guild insiders say has become too burdensome on actors. Abuses the guild is looking to reduce include asking actors to memorize the script, perform key parts of the script in less than two to three days, provide their own costumes and sets, or rent performance space. The demand to give on is included.
But the biggest potential sticking point may be the fight over viewership data, as SAG-AFTRA members, like their WGA counterparts, are demanding that streamers reveal closely guarded numbers about the performance of their shows and movies and that performance. Compensate creatives based on.
The recently ratified contract between the Directors Guild and AMPTP did not contain any terms regarding viewership data, raising the possibility that AMPTP would not include such terms in a potential settlement with either the WGA or SAG-AFTRA. who have publicly stated that they supported the DGA in its settlement, but that during their negotiations they would not be grateful to the terms of that guild.
As the industry waits for a solution, studios have been forced to make significant changes to their marketing plans for summer blockbusters with the possible strike in mind, leading to actor press junkets, movie premieres and major fan events and events. Get out of conferences.
For example, Warner Bros. held a lavish press junket and photo call in Beverly Hills for the July 21 release of “Barbie”, conducting interviews with its stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling before the contract deadline. Went. Several studios, including Marvel, have also pulled out of hosting panels and secret preview events at next month’s San Diego Comic-Con, which usually hosts stars for the biggest tentpole blockbusters in its famed Hall H.
If negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP fail, even with a contract extension, Hollywood will face a simultaneous strike by its two unions for the first time since the 1960s, when both the WGA and the Screen Actors Guild called for repertory compensation. But had stopped his labor. and the broadcast of feature films, forming the foundation of a residual system that decades later is experiencing significant changes to reflect the streaming-first industry.
On the other hand, a deal is likely to lead to debate within the SAG-AFTRA membership as to whether the negotiating benefits of the tentative agreement are sufficient to warrant ratification or to push for better terms. Needed In 2020, that debate primarily took place between members of the guild’s Unite for Strength caucus, of which then-president Gabrielle Carteris was a member, and the anti-Membership First Caucus, which controls SAG-AFTRA’s Los Angeles local.
But earlier this week, both the caucus indicated that such a debate might not happen between them this time. In a show of solidarity against the studios, Unite for Strength and Membership First announced that they would campaign unitedly to re-elect UFS member Fran Drescher as president and MF member Jolie Fisher as secretary-treasurer in the upcoming elections to the guild. Will run List of candidates for local and national boards.
“It comes at a time when the membership really needs the full weight of its union to fight for its creative and economic ideals, not against each other. “This is the most important and historic contract negotiation taking center stage,” Fischer said in a statement.
