The threat of a total stoppage in the film industry has come true. What seemed inevitable at midnight on Wednesday, after the deadline to reach an agreement between the actors union and the big Hollywood studios expired, was completed hours later. After a morning meeting, Fran Drescher, the president of the union of actors (Sag-Aftra, for its acronym in English), announced at a press conference for History in Los Angeles that the 160,000 members of the collective that represents the cinema and television will join the strike of the scriptwriters, on strike for two and a half months.
“They have not left us any other way out,” Drescher said in an impassioned speech charged with anger and frustration at the situation. “I thought we could avoid a strike, but I’m shocked at how far we are from reaching an agreement. It’s disgusting. They should be ashamed. They’re on the wrong side of history.” The 65-year-old interpreter said that the actors are “victims” of the greed of some studies moved by the interests of Wall Street. “You cannot change the business model and not expect the agreement to change. We demand respect. They cannot exist without us.”
Some have already named this horror film for the film industry: the perfect storm. And it is that it had been 63 years since a similar situation had occurred, since 1960, when Marilyn Monroe was still the great star of the time. The new scenario could paralyze thousands of shoots and seriously affect the flow of content on streaming platforms. If the writers’ strike meant the paralysis of programs such as late-night talk shows in the United States, the lack of actors threatens to immediately stop a considerable number of projects.
The blow would be fatal to the economy of California and the United States in general. More than 2.4 million employees and 122,000 companies depend on the film industry, according to data from the Motion Pictures Association. A shoot can mean an injection of about 250,000 dollars a day for a local economy, a sector that distributes 21,000 million dollars a year among 260,000 businesses in cities and towns throughout the country.
Hours before the announcement of the strike, Drescher had described as “insulting and disrespectful” the proposals by the employer, the Alliance of Film and Television Producers, the entity that represents the main studios and streaming platforms, including Amazon , Apple, Disney, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount, Sony, and Warner Bros. Discovery. “Businesses have refused to engage meaningfully on some issues and have blocked us outright on others,” the actress said in a statement. “Until they negotiate in good faith, we can’t start reaching an agreement.”
The actors hoped to reach an agreement before June 30, the date on which the agreement signed with the studios expired and is renewed every three years. But already in the last days of the month everything seemed to indicate that there would be no happy ending. In a letter signed by more than 300 interpreters, the possibility of a strike was contemplated, with names behind such as Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Jennifer Lawrence, Ben Stiller, Amy Schumer, Amy Poehler, Laura Linney, Julia Louis Dreyfus, Liam Neeson or Neil Patrick Harris.
“We feel that our wages, our craft, our creative freedom and the power of our union have been undermined over the past decade,” the letter said. “This is an unprecedented turning point in our industry, and what might have been considered good business in years past is simply not enough today.”
Their requests are similar to those of the scriptwriters. They demand salary improvements and royalty income. They also claim protection against the threat that artificial intelligence may pose to their work in the coming years. “We think it is absolutely vital that this deal not only protects our image, but also ensures that we are well compensated when some of our work is used to train artificial intelligence.”
On the table are also the regulations on castings recorded by the actors themselves, a phenomenon that accelerated as a result of the pandemic and that has resulted in fewer live sessions as a consequence. The studies, for now, wash their hands. In a statement they have expressed their disappointment at the situation and blame the union for the breakdown of negotiations. “It is the decision of the union of actors, not ours,” they said.
Ahead, the threat of pickets and demonstrations like the ones that the scriptwriters have been leading in Los Angeles and throughout the country and to which some actors had frequently joined. With this there are eight writers’ strikes in the last seven decades, with 2007 being the most recent. For actors, however, it is less frequent to reach these instances. The previous actors’ strike was in 1980. Then the threat came from the boom in video stores and the sale of tapes for home consumption.
The question now is whether the bosses will have to deal with both unions sitting together at the same table or separately, a month after the union that represents the directors reached an agreement described as historic with the studios. Unlike their professional colleagues, the filmmakers have reached an agreement for the next three years that includes salary improvements and protections against artificial intelligence programs.
Experts point out that the scriptwriters’ strike has affected 80% of the industry and that the actors’ strike would paralyze it completely, an added blow to the long-lasting effects of the pandemic on the film industry. Only streaming platforms have come out ahead of the plummeting box office.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project