AFP Actors Troy Garity, Rosanna Arquette and Jane Fonda during a demonstration last summer
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 03:16
The Hollywood actors’ union has reached a provisional agreement with an umbrella organization of film and TV studios, including a minimum wage and sharing in the profits of streaming services. The actors, affiliated with the SAG-AFTRA union, have been on strike since last July for better working conditions, and since then hardly any new films and TV series have been made and released.
The agreement now reached is subject to change: the union members still have to agree to it. It is also not known exactly what the agreement entails.
‘LA and NY no longer affordable’
Last spring, the American union of TV and film writers decided to go on strike, with roughly the same grievances as their acting colleagues: according to the unions, life in big cities like New York and Los Angeles has become so expensive that lesser-known actors and writers can no longer keep their heads above water. This requires a higher minimum wage, they say.
In addition, the strikers wanted to make more money from broadcasting TV series via streaming services, even years after the recordings. In the heyday of linear TV there were such residuals an important source of income for the contributing writers and actors, but streaming services often pay little or no such contributions to the makers.
Finally, the actors and writers wanted certain guarantees that the studios would not replace their work with artificial intelligence.
6 billion in economic damage
The TV and film writers’ union reached an agreement with the studios in September, after which they returned to work. However, the actors continued to strike. Both strikes have cost the American entertainment industry a huge amount of money: research agency Milken Institute estimates that they have cost the state of California more than six billion dollars in economic activity.
Because striking actors are no longer allowed to do promotional work by their union, already completed films were left on the shelf: the premiere of blockbusters such as Dune 2 was therefore postponed. Other highly anticipated films like the new one Mission: Impossible and the new version of Disney film Snow White have now been moved to 2025.
2023-11-09 02:16:09
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