Hollywood strike: Contract negotiations between studios and actors suspended

Negotiations between major Hollywood studios and actors have been suspended, shattering hopes that the three-month strike by performers would come to an end soon.

Sharing the news, the studios said that the gap between the two sides was too great to make continuing worth it, despite an offer they said was as good as the one that recently ended the Writers’ strike.

‘After meaningful conversations, it is clear that the gap between the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA is too great,’ the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which bargains on behalf of the studios, said in a statement.

They added the SAG-AFTRA proposal would cost companies an additional $800 million a year and create ‘an untenable economic burden’.

‘We went into those rooms with our own open mind and a goal of establishing a dialogue with those CEOs. We were very happy they were there because here are ultimate decision-makers who have the power to say yes,’ Crabtree-Ireland said.

‘We gave them a full set of counterproposals yesterday. We made changes to our AI proposal. We made dramatic changes to what used to be our streaming revenue share proposal. We took it out of revenue share completely at their insistence,’ he added.

SAG-AFTRA criticised their opponents’ ‘bullying tactics’ and said they were wildly mischaracterizing their offers.

Actors' union SAG-AFTRA has been on strike since July. The two sides have been fighting over issues such as compensation and the use of artificial intelligence.

On Oct. 2, for the first time since the strike began July 14, SAG-AFTRA resumed negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents studios, streaming services and production companies in strike talks.

When negotiations resumed with writers in September, their strike ended five days later, but similar progress was not made with the actors union.

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