How SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP Talks Broke Down After Calls to CEOs, a Strike Delay Demand and Rebuffed Offers

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Jamie Lee Curtis doesn’t pretend to know when she thinks the SAG-AFTRA strike will end. “I have no idea,” the Oscar winner told me Thursday morning at Project Angel Food’s groundbreaking ceremony for The Chuck Lorre Family Foundation Campus in Los Angeles. However, Curtis says she remains “hopeful” that the actors union and AMPTP can find common ground.” “I’m hopeful that we can all see all sides.

Luc Besson’s DogMan has become one of the first films to receive a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement that will allow talent to do press during the upcoming festival season. Actors will be allowed to promote the pic at its upcoming premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

In the wake of yesterday’s upbeat news that the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and the WGA are heading back for talks this Friday, SAG-AFTRA’s Duncan Crabtree-Ireland says that as far as actors go, it’s still crickets from the producers.

Sarah Silverman isn’t so pissed off any more about the interim agreements that SAG-AFTRA has been handing out, but the comedian is still pretty “cynical” about the whole thing.

Jaden Thompson Will Smith has taken to Instagram and Twitter to support the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes. A member of SAG-AFTRA, Smith wrote about the importance of this moment for both guilds. “I wanna talk for a second about ACTING,” Smith wrote.

2023 Emmy Awards are no longer taking place on Monday, Sept. 18, as was originally planned.

2023 Emmy Awards are no longer taking place on Monday, Sept. 18 as was originally planned.

SAG-AFTRA will hold a mass rally in Times Square on Tuesday morning. It’s expected to be the biggest rally in NYC since the strike began on July 14. Celebs scheduled to attend the “Rock the City for a Fair Contract” rally include Bryan Cranston, Steve Buscemi, Christian Slater, Lauren Ambrose, Christine Baranski, Matt Bomer, Tituss Burgess, Liza Colón-Zayas, Gregory Diaz, Jennifer Ehle, Nancy Giles, Danai Gurrira, Jill Hennessy, Marin Hinkle, Stephen Lang, Arian Moayed, Wendell Pierce, Corey Stoll and Merritt Wever.

SAG-AFTRA has granted more waivers in recent days that give permission to indie projects to shoot during the current strike, including the independent film The Summer Book starring Glenn Close. Other recent projects that will be allowed to shoot include the TV series Underdeveloped and Sight Unseen.

EXCLUSIVE: For those awards strategists wondering whether stars from indie U.S. films can promote at the fall film festival troika, SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland says “We’re looking at that issue.”

Following SAG-AFTRA’s clearance of AppleTV+’s Israeli spy series Tehran and New Line’s horror movie Watchers –prolific projects from AMPTP studios that the guild remains in talks with– in their interim agreement process, some producers and filmmakers in town have been miffed.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer The group that bargains on behalf of the studios issued a point-by-point response on Friday to SAG-AFTRA, arguing that the union walked away from a deal with more than $1 billion in additional wages, residuals and pension and health contributions. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers also argued that it has accepted the union’s demand for “informed consent” on the use of artificial intelligence — which has become one of the major issues in the week-old strike. Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the union’s top negotiator, alleged on July 13 that the studios want to scan background actors and replicate their likenesses “for the rest of eternity” without consent. The AMPTP has adamantly said that is false, and that its proposal includes both consent and compensation.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent The double SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes are worrying exhibitors in France, where the box office is driven by Hollywood blockbusters. In an interview with French news channel BFM Business, Richard Patry, who presides over the National Federation of Cinemas, predicts “the strike might go on for a long time” because it’s aimed at streaming services. “Many U.S. films have already started to be delayed, and it worries us a lot for 2024,” Patry said. The dearth of U.S. releases during the pandemic hurt the French box office, which was down by about 30% in 2022. Even if French movies have a large market share domestically, U.S. blockbusters typically drive an upward trend. Case in point: the French B.O. finally recovered this year and has been up 33%, bolstered by a spike in anticipated American movies, which skyrocketed from 29 in 2022 to 51 in the first five months of 2023, according to Comscore France. 

Jordyn Palos Not many publicists will talk about the strikes – especially not publicly. It is our job to stay in the background and navigate the public-facing and oftentimes private worlds of the talent we represent. It’s a career that I have loved for nearly two decades. Publicists are paid a fee to deliver impactful campaigns that can move the needle for our clients’ careers, but my journey is much deeper than media placement, making sure that photo approvals are completed, or ensuring that a plane arrives on time for an overseas premiere. Representation is a responsibility, and not one that I take lightly.  In 2010, I launched Persona PR out of my apartment with no larger agency experience and have worked to build my business from the ground up. As my company has expanded over the years, I have grown into more than a talent representative, and am now a full-fledged business owner, taking on employees and their livelihoods and wellbeing. I work to be a great partner for the companies we share business with, aspire to be a mentor to publicists coming up-the-ranks and became a wife and a mother to two children, as Persona PR has grown.

TelevisaUnivision CEO Wade Davis said the dual strikes crippling Hollywood have “zero impact” on his company’s operations due to the Hispanic media giant’s programming supply chain.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent French film guilds representing authors, directors and producers have released a joint letter pledging their “full solidarity” with the SAG-AFTRA and WGA double strike. “This battle that’s shaping tomorrow’s industry crosses borders. It’s also ours,” reads the letter, which was signed by the ARP (authors, directors, producers) and SRF (society of French directors), the governing body of Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight. The letter says the double strike “signals a turning point where the questions of sharing of wealth and integration of new models and AI are central.”

Editor’s note: Almost a week into the first joint strike by the actors union and the writers guild since 1960, there are picket lines all over LA and NYC. Yet there are no new negotiations planned between SAG-AFTRA or the WGA and the studios and streamers. Despite the silence and divisions between the parties, SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland insists that a pathway to a new contract and a better future for all is possible.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent In March, several months before SAG-AFTRA actors went on the warpath in Hollywood, Italy’s dubbing industry workers staged a protracted strike demanding higher wages, less frenzied work conditions and protection against artificial intelligence. The Italian dubbing industry workers – many of whom are voice actors – returned to work after three weeks as local unions entered a phase of negotiations that seemed promising enough, even though their issues are not yet resolved. Cut to the present day. Italian unions representing the country’s film and TV industry workers are at “a very critical, almost historic juncture” in a broader labor dispute with the country’s motion picture association ANICA and other industry trade orgs, according to Sabina Di Marco, leader of SLC CGIL, the biggest union at the bargaining table.

SAG-AFTRA is expanding its strike activities outside Los Angeles and New York this week, with picket lines and rallies in Orlando, Atlanta and Hawaii.

Christopher Nolan sees the insistence by striking SAG-AFTRA and WGA members that studios and streamers limit the use of artificial intelligence stems directly from the explosion of streaming over the past decade-plus.