SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP to Meet Again Wednesday After Full Day of Talks

After over a week of silence, the actors union and the AMPTP are set to return to negotiations on Tuesday, Oct. 24.

EXCLUSIVE: Ted Sarandos may have insisted today that he and other studio CEOs want to end the over three-month long actors strike and “get everyone back to work,” but for SAG-AFTRA’s chief negotiator, the Netflix boss is full of nothing but hot air.

“We want nothing more than to resolve this and get everyone back to work,” declared Netflix’s Ted Sarandos at the top of the streamer’s Q3 earnings video call Wednesday, exactly a week after talks with the actors guild ceased, for now. “That’s true for Netflix. That’s true for every member of the AMPTP,” the co-CEO added of his studio peers.

Negotiations between the studios and the striking actors guild may have come to a sudden halt last week, but according to Netflix today everyone is still talking – even when they aren’t.

The Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) Max streamer will launch in 22 European countries in spring 2024 and France and Belgium later next year, the media outfit revealed today.

SAG-AFTRA Chief Negotiator and National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland is very happy with Taylor Swift and not so happy with Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos.

In an interview of the Today show this morning, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher called the AMPTP’s walk out on strike negotiations this week “wrong,” “unfair,” and “disrespectful.”

Ellise Shafer SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher made an appearance on the “Today” show Friday morning to share her perspective on why the union’s talks with the AMPTP broke down. “It really came as a shock to me because what does that exactly mean and why would you walk away from the table? It’s not like we’re asking for anything that’s so outrageous,” Drescher said.

Netflix’s Ted Sarandos has claimed that SAG-AFTRA asked for a levy on every subscriber to streaming service, which led to the breakdown in talks to end the actors strike.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos shed some light on why negotiations between striking actors union SAG-AFTRA and Hollywood’s biggest producers fell apart. After a blistering statement from the guild in the wee hours on Thursday morning accused the studios and streamers of “bully tactics,” Sarandos hit the main stage of Bloomberg’s Screentime conference and ran headfirst into questions about the breakdown. Sarandos said that Wednesday evening talks ended with the guild proposing a “levy” on on each of Netflix’s roughly 238 million subscribers.

The latest round of talks between the studios and SAG-AFTRA on ending the 92-day strike have collapsed tonight and now he Fran Drescher-led guild are accusing the AMPTP of using “bully tactics” and “the same failed strategy they tried to inflict on the WGA.”

After a rough day of negotiations Wednesday, the actors guild and the studios have pulled the plug for now.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor NBCUniversal content chief Donna Langley has vowed that the top executives involved in contract negotiations with SAG-AFTRA will devote the time it takes to reach a new deal. Langley, who is chairman of NBCUniversal Studio Group and chief content officer of NBCUniversal, declined to say much about the state of talks with the performers union during her address Wednesday evening at Bloomberg Media’s Screentime conference in Hollywood. But she did express that her executive counterparts in the negotiating room — Disney’s Bob Iger, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos and Warner Bros.

There was no picketing Monday by SAG-AFTRA members due to the Indigenous Peoples Day holiday, but the leadership of the actors guild did return to the bargaining table with the studios and streamers.

SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, is attending New York Comic Con on Oct. 14 for the panel “AI in Entertainment: The Performer’s Perspective”.

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.

Back at the bargaining table Monday for the first time in more than two and a half months, SAG-AFTRA and the Hollywood studios and streamers have a long way to go to make a deal – even with the momentum gained by the end of the writers’ strike.

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.

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.