The actors' union is officially on strike this Thursday, July 13, 2023 . The SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists chaired by Fran Drescher – the actress of the series A Nanny – has ended negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, representing the interests of the studios, and thus joined the protest movement initiated by the screenwriters two months .
This double strike is the first in sixty years. Its consequences could be disastrous for the entertainment and image industry in the United States , if no agreement is reached in the coming days.
How did we arrive at such a blockage?
The protest movement is not new. On May 1, the Writers Guild of America's 11,500 screenwriters showed the way. The failure of their negotiations with the studios – scheduled every three years – had triggered a first strike. The WGA demanded higher wages and profit-sharing on the large profits made by the producers.
This Thursday, the American actors in turn expressed their dissatisfaction and abruptly left the table of discussions with the Hollywood studios. They demanded, among other things, an increase in their remuneration, at half mast in the era of streaming.
They also wanted to obtain guarantees regarding the use of artificial intelligence (AI), to prevent the latter from generating scripts or cloning their voice and image.
But the studios refused to accept, taking refuge behind the increase in production costs and the very strong competition from abroad.
What are both sides saying?
“We didn't want this strike, but we had no choice. We are the victims. We are victims of a very greedy entity ,” castigated Fran Drescher, the president of this organization which represents actors and other professionals on the small and big screen.
"It's a historic moment ," insisted the former star of the series "A nanny from hell". “If we don't stand up now…we all risk being replaced by machines and big corporations that care more about Wall Street than you and your family. »
The Alliance of Film and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represented studios and streaming platforms in the negotiations, said it was "very disappointed" in their failure. Disney boss Bob Igor even blasted "unrealistic" demands on CNBC.
Can the strike still be avoided?
The strike begins this Thursday, July 13, 2023 at midnight Los Angeles time, or Friday at 7 a.m. GMT, the actors' union announced.
SAG-AFTRA said at a press conference that the strike had been decided, after a unanimous vote by its national council on the issue.
The movement "will not backtrack" indicated one of its representatives, considering that the negotiations had sometimes been "very tough and very hostile" and that the words exchanged made it impossible to resolve the conflict quickly.
What's going to happen ?
This double strike is historic and occurs for the first time since 1960. 63 years of relative calm during which the Hollywood studios had always been able to attract the good graces of one or the other of the two corporations. Producers therefore did not expect such strong opposition in the summer of 2023 and are not prepared for it.
In addition to the 11,500 scriptwriters, there are now 160,000 actors, at a time when the sector is changing, but has never needed actors and authors so much.
The writers' strike has already sent many series into spirals of endless reruns, disrupted much of the fall TV season's production and halted work on big-budget movies.
The only productions being filmed recently were based on scripts already completed in the spring, but without the possibility of modification. This is particularly the case of the prequel to the "Lord of the Rings" financed by Amazon, the series "The Rings of Power".
Only a few talk shows and reality shows can otherwise continue.
The actors' strike will, in addition, force Hollywood studios to halt the latest US-based productions - even those already underway - and put more pressure on media companies to find a solution.
Without actors, filming is now impossible. The actors will also seize up the promotion of this summer's blockbusters, such as the highly anticipated "Oppenheimer" by Christopher Nolan. At the film's London premiere on Thursday, the film's cast left the event in a show of solidarity, according to Variety .
The American premiere of the film, scheduled for Monday in New York, is likely to be reduced to a minimum.
The absence of comedians on the red carpets would leave a big void in California. Comic-Con, the high mass of American geeks and comic book lovers, should take place without stars from July 20 in San Diego.
Even the Emmy Awards ceremony, the equivalent of the Oscars for TV, scheduled for September 18, is threatened. The production is already considering postponing the event to November, or even to 2024, according to the American press.
A lasting strike?
No one knows how long the movement may last. Actors have not gone on strike since 1980. The last writers' strike, which dates back to 2007-2008, lasted 100 days and cost the sector two billion dollars.
This double movement confirms the existential crisis currently affecting Hollywood. In late June, hundreds of famous actors, including Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence and Ben Stiller, signed a letter saying their industry was at an "unprecedented inflection point" .
Over the past ten years, the advent of streaming has upset the “residual” remuneration of actors and screenwriters, resulting from each rerun of a film or series.
Interesting with television because calculated according to the price of advertisements, these emoluments are much lower with streaming platforms, which do not communicate their audience figures and pay a flat rate, regardless of success.
Without this essential income to absorb the periods of inactivity between two productions, the many workers who do not have the status of star actor or author denounce a precariousness of their profession.
The rapid development of AI, which threatens to replace them, only adds fuel to the fire. Disney, for example, used it to produce the credits for its new Marvel series launched in June, “Secret Invasion”.
In New York on Thursday, several actors were already on the picket line.
"It's painful and it's necessary ," union actress Jennifer Van Dyck told AFP. "When the boss of Disney is making $45 million a year and we're just asking for a living wage, I think they're the ones who can be accused of being unreasonable."
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