SAG-AFTRA Approves Tentative Agreement with Studios After 118 Days of Strike
After six months of picketing, Hollywood strike closures may soon be over, as SAG-AFTRA told members it has reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on a new contract.
The agreement will now be presented to the actors’ guild’s national board, which is expected to approve it unanimously at an emergency meeting for presentation to union members. A voting period is then set during which members can either ratify or reject the treaty.
“In a unanimous vote this afternoon, the SAG-AFTRA TV/Theater Committee approved a tentative agreement with the AMPTP that ends the 118-day strike,” the actors’ guild announced in a statement Wednesday.
The deal between actors and studios arose from weeks of discussions at SAG-AFTRA headquarters between the guild’s negotiating committee, led by president Fran Drescher and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland and AMPTP president Carol Lombardini, as well as the quartet of CEOs present at the negotiations Writers Guild of America: Bob Iger of Disney, Ted Sarandos of Netflix, Donna Langley of NBCUniversal and David Zaslav of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Negotiations resumed on October 2, with the two sides alternating days working internally and negotiating directly, until the AMPTP on October 11 broke off the conversations over a revenue-sharing proposal for streaming services that studios called financially unsustainable. The proposal would require studios to transfer a percentage of streaming revenue to SAG-AFTRA, estimated by the union at 57 cents per subscriber, which would in turn be distributed to members.
Talks resumed on October 24 following phone calls between Iger, Drescher and Crabtree-Ireland. While the talks between studio CEOs and the Writers Guild of America were marked by a groundbreaking studio counter-proposal on key issues that led to rapid momentum toward an agreement, studio insiders told TheWrap that the talks between SAG-AFTRA and the CEOs have succeeded with both sides compromising on key issues, including minimum rate increases, streaming compensation and approval of AI-generated replicas of performers.
On November 4th, negotiations reached their home stretch when all CEOs of AMPTP member studios attended a virtual meeting where they presented their “best, last and final offer” to the guild. After days of internal consultation about the offer, SAG-AFTRA s
Details of the contract have not yet been announced, but studio insiders say the two sides have reached a compromise regarding the increase in minimum tariffs. Actors will receive a higher percentage increase in minimums in the first year of the contract than the 5% negotiated by the WGA and DGA, but less than the guild’s original proposed 11%.
The AMPTP also insisted that it would not agree to a revenue-sharing model in streaming and would instead push for a bonus structure similar to the one agreed with the WGA, which would see actors on a project receive additional money for films and TV episodes viewed by a certain percentage the viewer base of a streaming service.
Insiders say that in its counteroffers, including its final proposal, the AMPTP increased the size of the bonus compensation package, but did not sacrifice revenue sharing.
While Hollywood is just one ratification vote away from getting the cameras rolling again, several film divisions at major studios have already made major changes to their 2024 release plans, delaying films that weren’t expected to be completed due to actors hitting.
The postponed films include Paramount’s “Mission: Impossible 8,” which was moved from June 2024 to Memorial Day weekend in 2025. Disney has pushed back its live-action remake of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” starring Rachel Zegler by a full year to March 2025, while the Pixar film “Elio” has been pushed back even further to June 2025.
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