Kendrick Sampson Slams “Evil Human Being” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott As SAG-AFTRA Plans Dallas Rally

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer The strike is over, but the fight is not yet won. On Wednesday, as the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike formally ended after 148 days, Variety spoke with newly elected WGA East president Lisa Takeuchi Cullen and WGA East executive director Lowell Peterson about the end of the work stoppage at the East coast guild’s membership meeting to discuss their tentative three-year MBA agreement with the Hollywood studios.

This is Day 76 of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

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.

“Dancing with the Stars” floor. The actors union, which includes “DWTS” contestants Alyson Hannigan, Jamie Lynn Spears, Barry Williams, Mira Sorvino, Ariana Madix and Xochitl Gomez, said Thursday it supports its members taking part in the long-running ABC show.

Anna Kendrick and two fellow members of The Barden Bellas joined forces once again on the SAG-AFTRA picket line.

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.

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.

EXCLUSIVE: Fran Drescher is less concerned with meeting of several showrunners with WGA leadership this week and more concerned with studios and streamers getting back to the bargaining table to make a fair deal.

Fans might be worried about their favorite TV shows like The Voice, Dancing With the Stars, The Masked Singer and Bachelor Nation shows like The Bachelorette and new offshoot The Golden Bachelor amid the SAG-AFTRA strike.

Nearly 30,000 people  have signed a petition which urges the British government to give film and TV crews furlough cash, after the SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild strikes in the US have left them without work.

Had things gone according to plan, Anna Kendrick would be attending the Toronto International Film Festival in support of her directorial debut, “Woman of the Hour”, which is making its world premiere at the film fest.

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.

OK, so there was one good deal point –one– to come out of the AMPTP talks with the WGA, as SAG-AFTRA National Executive director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland admitted at TIFF today: It was the streamer’s transparency on viewership numbers.

signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott earlier this year, prohibits businesses from hosting performances that feature nudity — real or simulated — or contain sexually-tinged content, as well as shows with any simulation or representation of sexual acts or the use of accessories that “exaggerate male or female sexual characteristics,” such as prosthetic breasts.Establishments that violate the law can be fined $10,000 per occurrence, while performers found in violation can face up to a year in jail, a fine of $4,000, or both.

This is Day 129 of the WGA strike and Day 56 of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

The Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA will rally on Thursday at Amazon Studio in Culver City to highlight their push a bill that would provide unemployment insurance to striking workers in California. Striking writers and actors in New York and New Jersey are already eligible to receive unemployment benefits after 14 days on the picket line, but not in California.

Ethan Hawke Guest Columnist I first came across the name Flannery O’Connor when I was in high school idly scanning the spines of books in my parents’ living room. I read a couple of the stories — “The Lame Shall Enter First” and “Everything That Rises Must Converge” — and became intrigued by the fact that my mother ranked O’Connor with the likes of William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams when it came to conjuring the white, post-Civil War, Southern persona. Decades later, my daughter Maya introduced me to another side of O’Connor by giving me the writer’s “Prayer Journal” — a young woman’s search for meaning through musings addressed to God, all written in a lined notebook.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent While at the Venice Film Festival to pay tribute to Ruggero Deodato, “Drive” and “The Neon Demon” filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn participated in a masterclass and bashed streamers for being “overfunded and rotten with money and cocaine.” The director, who previously infuriated some in the film biz by claiming that “cinema is dead,” said he has somewhat changed his mind and will now fight for cinema to continue on because streamers have “kind of saturated everything” and “devalued content to just a swipe.” Refn, who last directed the series “Copenhagen Cowboy” for Netflix, said “it’s incredibly sad and terrifying because art is essentially the only thing – besides, you know, sex, water and happiness — that makes us exist.” “Even though I projected it was dead a few years ago, it has changed into something we have to fight for,” he added. “Theatrical movies are part of what makes us human and experience creativity.” The director, who lives in Copenhagen with his wife and children, went on to tie streamers to the dangers of artificial intelligence saying that it’s “certainly something affecting our industry.” “AI is not an artist,” Refn proclaimed.