In Lebanon and the Arab world, there are endless complaints from actors against producers who spend a lot on the requirements of filmed scenes, but when it comes to actors, and here we mean non-star crew members, skimping begins and discusses each actor to win the lowest number he can receive, given that the budget does not bear much, and often everyone accepts wages that are not a few times humiliating.
And it became clear later, through the voices of actors belonging to a union in the United States, that their situation is similar in its various forms to what prevails in third world countries. There was no differentiation because America is the first country in the world, and it is wealthy and has Hollywood, the capital of cinema in the universe. This means that this place is supposed to set an example in all technical details starting with wages, but this is not the case, as evidenced by the actors’ strike two weeks ago without batting an eyelid for the producers, although many of their projects have stopped.
Where is the hidden stitch in the picture?! The issue is simply that the owners of the money do not honor or acknowledge the size of their profits, but rather consider that their businesses barely return their budgets, so that the crisis remains the same with the presence of some who are outside the syndicate’s consensus and its decisions and who betray their colleagues in a direct way when they meet the request of producers for actors, so they go to undergo a casting experience in order to distribute the roles to them, taking work that is not their right, and the producers are very happy because the forced ones found the door of relief.
They demonstrate, threaten to escalate, and announce their willingness to negotiate their demands with the production agencies, which do not show any reaction so far equivalent to what is caused by the actors stopping work, but it is a provocative attempt to exhaust the claimants with indifference and to say that the conditions do not allow for increases because the revenues are not enough to say that there is what meets the need to provide better allowances.
All this happens while we continue filming huge films with budgets exceeding 200 million dollars, then the opening day revenues for films are very high and sometimes exceed 20 million. So where is the crisis: It is in two equations, either in huge productions while the producers do not like the low wages of the actors, or they are simply unprofitable films due to their low level, and therefore the generosity will be in the pocket of the producer, and this is impossible.
