Brooks Barnes, John Koblin and
About 160,000 television and movie actors are going on strike at midnight, joining screenwriters who walked off the job in May and setting off Hollywood’s first industrywide shutdown in 63 years.
The leaders of the union, SAG-AFTRA, approved a strike on Thursday, hours after contract talks with a group of studios broke down. Actors will be on the picket line starting on Friday.
“What’s happening to us is happening across all fields of labor,” said Fran Drescher, SAG-AFTRA’s president. “When employers make Wall Street and greed their priority and they forget about the essential contributors who make the machine run, we have a problem.”
Ms. Drescher said the union was still willing to negotiate — even later today — but only if the studios are “willing to talk in a normal way that honors what we do.”
The previous three-year contract expired at 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, after an extension from June 30 to allow for continued talks. But the two sides are divided on a range of issues, including pay and the use of artificial intelligence.
The union says it is trying to ensure living wages for workaday actors and to protect its members from having their likenesses used in productions they took no part in. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of Hollywood companies, said it had worked to reach a reasonable deal at a time the industry has been upended by the growth of streaming services.
Many of the actors’ demands mirror those of the striking writers, whose own work stoppage had already brought many productions to a halt even before the actors voted for their first major walkout in more than 40 years.
It’s been even longer — since 1960, when Marilyn Monroe was still starring in films — since actors and screenwriters were on strike at the same time. The dual strikes would effectively bring the entertainment business to a halt, pitting more than 170,000 workers against old-line studios like Disney, Universal, Sony and Paramount, as well newer juggernauts like Netflix, Amazon and Apple.
Here’s what to know:
The labor dispute involves wages, residuals (a type of royalty), artificial intelligence and other matters. Read about the central issues here.
The labor dispute has caught the studios somewhat off guard. In early June, roughly 65,000 members of the actors’ union — nearly 98 percent of voters — backed authorizing a strike. Later last month, more than 1,000 actors, including luminaries like Meryl Streep, John Leguizamo, Jennifer Lawrence, Constance Wu and Ben Stiller, signed a letter declaring that they were “prepared to strike.” Read more about how the talks have played out.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said in a statement that it was “deeply disappointed” that the union had decided to walk away from the talks. “This is the union’s choice, not ours,” the group said. Read about the pressures the studios are facing.
The actors’ walkout would provide additional support to the striking writers, who have been walking picket lines for more than 70 days. Their union, the Writers Guild of America, has yet to return to bargaining with the studios. Read more about the writers’ strike.
The actors last staged a major walkout in 1980, with the economic particulars of a still-nascent home video rental and sales boom as a sticking point. Their latest action is part of a resurgent labor movement, particularly in California, where hotel workers, school bus drivers, teachers and cafeteria staff have all gone on strike for some duration in recent months.
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For more than two months, viewers have been without new episodes of late-night shows like “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” because of the writers strike.
With the actors now voting to strike too, viewers are likely to notice the effects of the dual walkouts more broadly within the next couple of months.
Unless there is an immediate resolution to the labor disputes, the fall television lineup is almost certain to be affected. Instead of new episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy” or “Abbott Elementary,” the ABC fall lineup in September will be populated by a combination of reality series, game shows and reruns. That means lots of episodes of “Celebrity Wheel of Fortune,” “Dancing With the Stars” and “Judge Steve Harvey.”
Likewise, the Fox broadcast network announced its fall lineup on Wednesday, and it is packed with unscripted series like “Celebrity Name That Tune,” “The Masked Singer,” “Kitchen Nightmares” and “Snake Oil,” a new game show hosted by David Spade.
Though many productions have shut down since the writers went on strike on May 2, some filming continued for films and TV series that had completed scripts. One prominent talent agent who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly said that the writers’ strike had effectively shut down 80 percent of the scripted industry — and the actors’ strike will ground it entirely.
For premium cable networks and streaming services, the longer the disputes drag on, the bigger the effect there will be next year. Casey Bloys, the chairman of HBO, told Variety on Wednesday that “at least through the end of 2023, we’re OK. And then into 2024, it starts to get dicier.”
If the strikes drag into the fall, blockbuster films scheduled to be released next summer, like “Deadpool 3,” could also be delayed.
Entertainment reporter
The union said that the strike means that any Emmy campaigning by actors will immediately end.
Entertainment reporter
“The eyes of the world and, particularly, the eyes of labor are upon us,” Fran Drescher, the president of SAG-AFTRA, said. “What happens to us is important. What’s happening to us is happening across all fields of labor. When employers make Wall Street and greed their priority and they forget about the essential contributors who make the machine run, we have a problem.”
transcript
‘Shame On Them’: Fran Drescher Admonishes Studios
Fran Drescher, the president of SAG-AFTRA, and other leaders of the union, voted to strike.
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I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us. I cannot believe it, quite frankly. How far apart we are on so many things. How they plead poverty. That they’re losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their C.E.O.s. It is disgusting. Shame on them.
Entertainment reporter
Drescher shook her fists during an angry screed against studios. While her partner at the union, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the chief negotiator, spoke from a teleprompter, she spoke off the cuff. “Wake up and smell the coffee!” she said. “We demand respect! You cannot exist without us!”
Entertainment reporter
The strike is set to begin at midnight. The actors will be on the picket line on Friday.
The actors have voted to strike, said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the national executive director and chief negotiator of SAG-AFTRA.
Culture reporter
The cast of the film “Oppenheimer” walked out of the film’s London premiere on Thursday in solidarity with what appeared to be an imminent actors’ strike, the film’s director, Christopher Nolan, reportedly told the audience.
Entertainment reporter
At SAG-AFTRA headquarters near the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, more than 20 TV cameras are awaiting a news conference by Fran Drescher and her actors’ union compatriots. Another 50 reporters are camped out with laptops, with more arriving by the minute. Upbeat union workers are handing out yogurt cups with fruit and frosted cupcakes with sprinkles.
Reporting from Los Angeles
On a writers’ picket line outside Paramount Pictures Studios in Hollywood, striking writers were enthusiastic about the possibility the actors’ union could soon join them. Rachel Alter, a strike captain, said that the last time the two unions joined forces, they made a powerful negotiating team. Scott Moore, a screenwriter known for “The Hangover” and “Bad Moms,” said: “People like pretty faces. Actors will be better looking than writers, and we might get more attention.”
The Hollywood writers and actors in contract disputes with the studios have argued that this is an existential moment for them and their professions. Many studio executives would say the same about their business.
The studios have watched their share prices nosedive and their profit margins shrink as viewership for cable and network television — as well as box office returns — have collapsed as streaming entertainment has exploded in popularity.
For several years, Wall Street rewarded media companies for investing lavishly in their new streaming services, and chasing subscribers at any cost. But last year, after Netflix lost subscribers for the first time in a decade, investors began souring on that philosophy and demanded that entertainment companies make their cash-bleeding streaming services profitable in a hurry.
Many companies — including Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney, Netflix and Paramount — have resorted to rounds of layoffs over the past year. Several companies have also purged original series from their streaming services, all in the name of attempting to increase profit margins. Studio executives also put the brakes on ordering new television series last year to try to rein in costs.
In an interview on CNBC on Thursday morning, Disney’s chief executive, Robert A. Iger, said that given all the “disruptive forces” in the business, this was “the worst time in the world to add to that disruption.”
The striking writers have not been sympathetic to the studio’s recent profitability woes. Chris Keyser, a chair of the writers’ union’s negotiating committee, pointed out in an interview earlier this year that Netflix is already profitable, and that rival companies have said their streaming services will be profitable in the next year or two. “We don’t get to negotiate again until 2026,” Mr. Keyser said. “We’re not waiting around until they’re profitable.”
Barry Diller, the veteran entertainment executive, said in an interview that the rise of streaming entertainment has shaken up a business that successfully worked for the studios for decades.
“You have a complete change in the underlying economics of the entertainment business that it previously held for certainly the last 50 years, if not the last 100 years,” he said. “Everything was basically in balance under the hegemony of five major studios, and then, oh, my God, along come the tech companies in Netflix, Amazon and Apple and the fast, transformative things that came out of Covid. The result of which is you have a business that’s just completely upended.”
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Some studios seem to be trying show that it is business as usual. Paramount publicists just cheerfully served up a new clip from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” set for release in theaters on Aug. 2. “Sneak preview and early access fan event!”
Like the striking writers, leaders of SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, have described their labor dispute in stark terms, calling the present moment “existential” for their members.
And like the writers, they have argued that this has rapidly approached a crisis because of how streaming entertainment has exploded over the last decade.
“We’re looking to make sure that acting can be a sustainable career choice for people, not just the 100 most famous celebrities in the world, but for the whole large population of our membership,” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the lead negotiator for the union, said in a recent interview. “They should be able to make a living and you know, pay a mortgage or pay rent like everybody else.”
The actors have raised a number of grievances, including the regulations on self-taped auditions, a pandemic phenomenon that has resulted in fewer live casting sessions.
But the core issues have been about compensation, as well as the use of artificial intelligence. The union has argued that actor compensation — particularly residuals, a type of royalty payment — has been “severely eroded” in recent years. In the old system, if a television series was a runaway hit, actors could expect significant residual checks to hit their bank account for years afterward. In the streaming era, the actors argue, the pie has gotten smaller, as have the checks.
“We’re fundamentally interested in making sure that our members share in the success of projects that they create,” Mr. Crabtree-Ireland said.
The actors also have grave concerns about artificial intelligence, and how the technology could be used to replicate their performances using their previous work without their being compensated or consulted.
Tara Kole, a lawyer with the entertainment law firm Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole, which represents actors like Emma Watson and Ashley Judd, said in an interview that the potential use of artificial intelligence was “terrifying” to actors.
“I think that’s become the intractable issue,” Ms. Kole said. “It feels existential and people don’t understand it. It’s new. It’s scary. Everyone is worried that all of a sudden they will be in a sequel to a movie and they are not getting paid for their work.”
Mr. Crabtree-Ireland, the lead negotiator, said of A.I., “We have a real vested interest in making sure that something significant is done about this, so that we’re not trying to fix it retroactively three years from now. It needs to be done now.”
In a statement, the Alliance of Motion Picture and the Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of the studios, said early Thursday morning that they offered “historic pay and residual increases,” and offered a “groundbreaking” A.I. proposal that “protects actors’ digital likeness.”
“Rather than continuing to negotiate, SAG-AFTRA has put us on a course that will deepen the financial hardship for thousands who depend on the industry for their livelihoods,” the studios said.
The potential strike by the union representing 160,000 television and movie actors, which could begin as early as Thursday, is not directly connected to the concurrent strike by 11,500 writers of TV and film, a work stoppage that began on May 2. But the two separate unions share many of the same concerns and goals, including higher wages, increased residual payments and protections around the use of artificial intelligence.
Here’s an update on where the writers’ strike stands.
Why are the writers striking?
Every three years, the Writers Guild of America negotiates a new contract with the major Hollywood studios. The negotiations this time were long expected to be fraught.
Television production has grown rapidly over the past decade, as media companies have invested billions into streaming services. But the writers have said that their compensation has stagnated. W.G.A. leaders have said the current system is broken, arguing that the “the survival of writing as a profession is at stake in this negotiation.”
Where do the negotiations stand?
The writers’ guild has not returned to bargaining with the studios since the strike began.
The actors’ walkout will provide an immediate boon to the striking writers, who have been walking picket lines for more than 70 days. Actors will soon join the writers at pickets in Los Angeles and New York in what are likely to be raucous and star-studded spectacles.
What effect has the strike had on production?
Even before the potential actors’ strike, Hollywood was 80 percent shut down because of the writers’ walkout. Late-night shows aren’t making new episodes. Production on many other shows and movies, which often rely on writers on set to rewrite scenes on the fly, has shut down.
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Entertainment reporter
The national board of SAG-AFTRA is expected to start meeting soon, but it’s not clear how long a vote might take. It’s a large group, which includes Sean Astin, Jennifer Beals, Josh Charles, Joely Fisher (the secretary-treasurer), Brad Garrett, Diane Ladd, Matthew Modine, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Sharon Stone.
Though Hollywood had been bracing for a writers’ strike since the beginning of the year — screenwriters have walked out eight times over the past seven decades, most recently in 2007 — the actors’ uncharacteristic resolve in recent weeks caught senior executives and producers off guard.
The first distress signal for the studios came in early June when roughly 65,000 members of SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, voted to authorize a strike. Almost 98 percent of the voters supported the authorization, a stunning figure that only narrowly eclipsed the writers’ margin.
Still, studio negotiators went into the talks feeling optimistic. They were taken aback when they saw the list of proposals from the union — it totaled 48 pages, nearly triple the size of the list during their last negotiations in 2020, according to two people familiar with the proposals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential talks.
Then in late June, more than 1,000 actors, including luminaries like Meryl Streep, John Leguizamo, Jennifer Lawrence, Constance Wu and Ben Stiller, signed a letter to guild leadership, declaring pointedly that “we are prepared to strike.”
“This is an unprecedented inflection point in our industry, and what might be considered a good deal in any other years is simply not enough,” the letter said. “We feel that our wages, our craft, our creative freedom and the power of our union have all been undermined in the last decade. We need to reverse those trajectories.”
On Tuesday, the union agreed to a request by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to hire a federal mediator, but refused to extend the contract deadline past Wednesday. Two mediators got involved, according to people briefed on the talks.
The Hollywood studios will now need to navigate a two-front labor war with no modern playbook to consult. There are many open questions, including whether the actors and the writers may demand that future negotiations with the studios be conducted in tandem. One guild that will not be included: The Directors Guild of America, which ratified a contract last month with the studios that their union leadership described as “historic.”