Fran Drescher Slams “Greedy” Studio CEOs ; Want To “Keep Us Their Peons,” SAG-AFTRA Prez Says

One down, and more to come.

SAG-AFTRA is set to sit down with the studios today to restart talks on a deal for the actors.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor AI, streaming residuals and minimum rate hikes will be among the key issues on the table when SAG-AFTRA and Hollywood’s largest employers sit down Monday for the first formal bargaining talks since the performers union went on strike July 14. SAG-AFTRA and negotiators for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers are expected to meet around midday at the union’s Miracle Mile headquarters at SAG-AFTRA Plaza. The talks follow the settlement the AMPTP reached last week with the Writers Guild of America after a 148-day strike.

Everybody who needs to be in the room when SAG-AFTRA and the studios sit down for talks next week will be.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Lead negotiators for SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers will head back to the table on Monday, Oct. 2, after a bitter concurrent strike led by the Writes Guild of America was resolved on Tuesday. “SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP will resume negotiations for a new TV/Theatrical contract on Monday, Oct.

Activision, Electronic Arts, Epic Games and more.SAG-AFTRA, which stands for the union of Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, had announced its intention to strike against these companies earlier this month.Under the Interactive Media Agreement, companies like Activision, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Formosa Interactive, Insomniac Games, Take 2 Productions, VoiceWorks Productions and WB Games “failed” to resolve the issues that SAG-AFTRA explained to them upon the renewal of their contract.“It’s time for the video game companies to stop playing games and get serious about reaching an agreement on this contract… the time is now for these companies – which are making billions of dollars and paying their CEOs lavishly – to give our performers an agreement that keeps performing in video games as a viable career,” president Fran Drescher said in a statement.The vote was almost unanimous with 98.32 per cent of members of the union arguing in favour of strike authorisation. As a result, SAG-AFTRA is able to sanction a strike immediately should negotiations fail between the union and those included in Interactive Media Agreement.The next set of negotiations will occur from September 26 to September 28.

SAG-AFTRA members have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike against 10 of the major video game companies. The vote was 98.32% in favor.  A total of 34,687 members cast ballots, representing a voting 27.47% of eligible voters. The guild’s last strike against the gaming companies, in 2016-17, lasted 183 days. The guild, meanwhile, has been on strike against the film and TV industry since July 14.

SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher, saying that “right now is the time to show our solidarity,” is urging her members to authorize a strike against the video game industry. The guild, which has been on strike against the film and TV industries since July 14, could go on strike against the gaming companies any time after September 25, when voting on the strike authorization ends. The guild’s first and only strike against the gaming companies lasted 183 days in 2016-17.

A meeting between a group of leading showrunners including Kenya Barris and Noah Hawley and WGA leadership has been canceled.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Media watchdog GLAAD released its Studio Responsibility Index on Thursday, using its annual ranking of queer representation in mainstream films to stand with striking unions SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America. Convening in-person at the Los Angeles LGBTQ Center’s Ed Gould Plaza in Hollywood, leadership from both show business unions, queer talent and GLAAD CEO Sarah Kate Ellis spoke of the dangers that work stoppages from the strokes pose to inclusive storytelling.

With the actors’ strike now in its 63rd day, SAG-AFTRA leaders are ramping up their rhetoric against the studio heads, accusing them in the latest issue of the SAG-AFTRA Magazine of “behaving like petty tyrants,” “would-be feudal lords” and “land barons in feudal times.”

Hollywood has been making steady progress toward including more LBGTQ characters into its storylines, according to the latest report from GLAAD, but SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher says that those gains are in jeopardy because of the studios’ intransigence in reaching a fair deal to end the ongoing strikes by actors and writers.

As the SAG-AFTRA strike clocked its 62nd day, and the WGA’s 135th, the former held a massive solidarity march today from Netflix HQ on Van Ness Blvd to the Melrose gates of Paramount to juice guilds’ spirits with the entertainment industry work stoppage running past Labor Day.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer SAG-AFTRA held a massive march and rally outside the Paramount studio on Wednesday, as the union marked 62 days on strike. Union leaders argued that the strike has resonated across industries, as workers stand up to “unchecked corporate greed.” “What’s at stake is bigger than just the entertainment industry,” said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the union’s executive director. “It’s about the livelihoods of everyone who needs a job to earn a living.” He urged actors to use their voices and authenticity to speak for the broader labor movement.

Michaela Zee Jessica Chastain is encouraging independent producers to sign interim agreements amid the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike. “If a majority of independent producers, come forward and sign the Interim Agreement deal it will show the AMPTP how wrong they are when they say our contract terms are unrealistic or unreasonable,” Chastain wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Sunday.

Ezra Knight has been reelected president of SAG-AFTRA’s New York Local in a landslide victory that also gave his running mates a clean sweep of the election. Knight received nearly 73% of the votes cast in a four-person race for president. His four vice presidential running mates – Linda Powell, Anthony Rapp, Jim Kerr and Liz Zazzi – were also elected.

SAG-AFTRA’s presence at TIFF continued into Saturday with a special picket outside Amazon offices here in Toronto with Canada’s commercial actors union ACTRA, who’ve been in a 501 day contract lockout with the country’s advertising agency’s org.

Fran Drescher was re-electedSAG-AFTRA president for a two-year term on Sept. 8.The actress and comedian received 23,080 votes to beat out actress and writer Maya Gilbert-Dunbar’s 5,276 votes in the election, which took place amid the union’s strike against Hollywood studios.

Fran Drescher isn’t going anywhere as SAG-AFTRA President.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Fran Drescher has been elected to a second term as president of SAG-AFTRA, as the union’s first studio strike in 43 years nears the two-month mark. Drescher was elected with 81.4% of the vote, defeating Maya Gilbert-Dunbar, who took 18.6%. Joely Fisher took 70.3% in her race for a second term as secretary-treasurer.