Directors Guild Approves Premium-Free Limited Benefit Health Plan

EXCLUSIVE: CAA has signed actress Jo Ellen Pellman, the breakout star of Ryan Murphy’s The Prom.

Dave McNary Film ReporterThe Directors Guild of America has extended its commercials contract with producers — including recently approved COVID-19 safety protocols — for a year until Nov. 30, 2021.The DGA, which represents more than 18,000 members, has announced that its national board had unanimously approved the one-year extension of its National Commercial Agreement with the Association of Independent Commercial Producers.

Tayshia Adams is heading to hometowns. Or rather, the hometowns are heading to Tayshia Adams. This week's episodes of — that's right, there are two! — will see Tayshia connect with her final four men and their family members at La Quinta Resort & Club in Palm Springs, California.

The national board of SAG-AFTRA passed resolutions today requiring that members adhere to the union’s Covid-19 safety protocols and “correcting” what it calls “misrepresentations” about changes to the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan that will go into effect January 1. The latter is aimed at supporters of a class-action lawsuit who accused the Plan’s trustees of making eligibility changes that will fall hardest on older members — a charge that the trustees vehemently deny.

Dave McNary Film ReporterSAG-AFTRA’s national leadership has waded into the bitter dispute over the looming deep cuts in the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan as the union’s national board vowed to combat “misinformation” and condemned opponents of the cuts.Gabrielle Carteris, president of the performers union, accused the opponents of conduct similar to those running “scams” that target the elderly. Opponents of the looming SAG-AFTRA Health Plan cuts already alleged on Dec.

There will be a new, unfamiliar face joining the cast of Fair City this week, and just like others who have joined the soap in the past, drama ensues.

Filmmakers have made their thoughts known. Theater chains have blasted the idea, already.

Sunday night in Carrigstown will bring new faces and inevitably new drama.

Dave McNary Film ReporterThe Directors Guild of America has criticized Warner Bros. over the studio’s decision to release its entire 2021 theatrical slate simultaneously on the HBO Max streaming service, according to a report in The Hollywood Reporter.DGA National Executive Director Russell Hollander sent a letter to Warner Bros.

Days after WarnerMedia’s Dec. 3 reveal that it would premiere its entire 2021 slate of 17 films — including tentpoles like Godzilla vs.

The group of dissident actors behind the class action ageism lawsuit filed against the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan over its pending benefit cuts have answered the union’s five-point defense of the changes in coverage that will take effect January 1. Both sides are accusing the other of “misleading” the union’s members about the causes of the Plan’s troubles and the changes that they say are needed to rescue it.

Dave McNary Film ReporterOpponents of the looming SAG-AFTRA Health Plan cuts have hit back at SAG-AFTRA over the leadership’s accusations that the opponents are spreading “misinformation and fear.”In a message Sunday morning, the SOS Health Plan said the Dec. 4 message from the union’s official SAG-AFTRA Communications’ account is “deliberately misrepresenting the Health Plan Crisis.”“They insist that the truth is paramount.

The board of trustees of the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan said today that it will “vigorously contest” a class action lawsuit filed on Tuesday, calling it “entirely without merit.” Facing staggering deficits, the Plan announced in August that it will be raising premiums and earnings thresholds for coverage on January 1 in order to stay afloat, which will remove thousands of current recipients from coverage.

Lewis Pullman, Noah Reid, Shaun Sipos and Isabel Arraiza join Josh Brolin and Imogen Poots in the Amazon series Outer Range. Pullman, Reid, Sipos, and Arraiza round out the cast of series regulars, alongside previously announced lead actors Lili Taylor, Tamara Podemski and Tom Pelphrey.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterThe upcoming Amazon series “Outer Range” has rounded out its main cast.Lewis Pullman, Noah Reid, Shaun Sipos, and Isabel Arraiza have all been cast in the series, Variety has learned.

Dave McNary Film ReporterAmid the avalanche of disheartening developments this year, few were as dispiriting in Hollywood as the Aug. 12 announcement by the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan that it was eliminating coverage for 11,750 of 32,000 participants, including 8,200 senior performers.The plan and its trustees blamed the COVID-19 pandemic for creating $140 million in losses this year and projected that the reserves would be gone by 2024.

As SAG-AFTRA seeks to modify its healthcare plans for the New Year, a number of notable union members including Clancy Brown, Whoopi Goldberg, Mark Hamill and Morgan Freeman voiced their concerns with the changes in a social media video.

Dave McNary Film ReporterMark Hamill, Whoopi Goldberg and Morgan Freeman and a dozen other high-profile SAG-AFTRA members are blasting upcoming benefit cuts to the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan in a pointed video.Amy Schumer, Clancy Brown, Shirley Jones, Carol Kane, Martin Sheen, Vincent D’Onofrio, Lea Thompson, Matthew Modine, Lesley Ann Warren, Jodi Long and Elliott Gould also appeared in a two-minute “What Would You Do?” video released by the SOS Health Plan, formed in August following the