End clap, but start of hostilities in Hollywood : the actors launched their strike, Friday, July 14, protesting in front of the major studios with the scriptwriters, for a double social movement which causes the worst paralysis of the sector for more than 60 years.
Hundreds of strikers with placards marched in front of the building of Netflix on the famous Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Similar scenes unfolded all over the city in front of other studios and streaming services like HBO, Amazon or Paramount. But also in New York, in front of the headquarters of NBC Universal.
“We are here for the long term, but this is a historic moment,” Vera Cherny told AFP. “It’s time to secure the contracts that will serve future generations of actors. Just like they did in 1960,” added this 44-year-old actress, who appeared in the series “The Americans” and “For All Mankind”.
Read alsoIn Hollywood, actors join screenwriters in the strike, a first since 1960
The production of films and series had already been idling since the beginning of May because of the movement of screenwriters, but with the walkout of actors, the American industry finds itself on its knees: apart from a few “soap operas” and TV shows reality, filming is simply no longer possible.
The two trades are demanding an increase in their remuneration, at half mast in the era of streaming. They also want to obtain guarantees regarding the use of artificial intelligence (AI), to prevent the latter from generating scripts or cloning their voices and images.
“We are fighting for it to be a viable career”
Despite a ten-day extension and last-minute government mediation, negotiations between the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA and employers failed.
The gap between studio and platform executives and industry workers seems wide. Thursday, the boss of DisneyBob Iger, castigated the “unrealistic” demands of the actors and screenwriters.
On the picket lines, the atmosphere is one of determination. The refrain of a Hollywood perverted by the values of Silicon Valley and its obsession with reducing costs comes up regularly among the actors or screenwriters met by AFP in recent weeks.
“We are fighting for it to be a viable career, and not just a small job”, explains Jonathan Bazile to Netflix, castigating the culture of “tech bros” imported by the advent of streaming.
This new model has upset the “residual” remuneration of actors and screenwriters, which results from each rerun of a film or series and allows them to live between two projects.
The impact of the strike for the sector is likely to be staggering. The last writers’ strike, which dates back to 2007-2008, lasted 100 days and cost the sector two billion dollars.
With AFP and Reuters
2023-07-14 20:42:11
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