There’s no end in sight for the Hollywood actors strike as negotiations between the actors’ union, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents production studios, broke down.
SAG-AFTRA has been on strike since mid-July. The union resumed negotiations with studios last week after the Writers Guild of America (WGA) struck a deal which ended its own strike.
But optimism that this would lead to a deal for the actors have been dashed, with SAG-AFTRA saying on Thursday that the studios walked away from the bargaining table and had refused to counter its latest offer.
It said the studios rejected its revised revenue share proposal, which it said would cost the companies less than $0.57 per subscriber per year, and refused to include protections for actors around the use of artificial intelligence (AI) or wage increases that keep pace with inflation.
“Instead they use bully tactics,” SAG-AFTRA said in a statement. “They intentionally misrepresented to the press the cost of the above proposal – overstating it by 60%.
“They have done the same with AI, claiming to protect performer consent, but continuing to demand ‘consent’ on the first day of employment for use of a performer’s digital replica for an entire cinematic universe (or any franchise project).”
AMPTP, which represents media companies including Netflix and Walt Disney, said the union’s revenue share proposal would cost more than $800 million per year, which it described as an “untenable economic burden.”
“After meaningful conversations, it is clear that the gap between the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA is too great, and conversations are no longer moving us in a productive direction,” AMPTP said.
The studios said that on issues such as general wage increases, high-budget subscription video-on-demand residuals, and viewership bonuses, it offered SAG-AFTRA the same terms that were ratified by the Directors Guild of America and the WGA but these were rejected by the union.
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