EXCLUSIVE: A brand new proposal from the studios to attempt to finish the 113-day SAG-AFTRA strike has simply been delivered to the guild.
With CEOs anticipated to instantly take part, the actors guild and the AMPTP have set additional negotiations for this weekend, we hear. Anticipation that this might imply a brand new three-year contract at hand within the subsequent 48 hours needs to be “dialed down,” a well-positioned guild supply mentioned, as SAG-AFTRA brass have to totally evaluate the doc earlier than even getting again to the bargaining desk.
These developments come on the finish of a tense week that noticed the tone of talks pessimistically shift as SAG-AFTRA awaited a proper response to their most up-to-date counters. A studio insider late Friday dismissed the nervousness and mentioned the time was merely a matter of the powers-that-be wanting to place a full package deal on the desk earlier than the actors guild.
“We’re going to make them an offer, then we’ll see where we all go from there,” an exec near talks mentioned late Friday afternoon
This newest headway additionally comes amid leaks and rumors ricocheting round city right now that the studios are on a decent deadline for a deal to avoid wasting the remainder of the TV season and the 2024 movie schedule.
With “fluid” changed “cautious optimism” as the brand new drumbeat for contract talks over the previous a number of days, the insider identified the “urgency” to discover a decision to the labor motion. At the identical time, people with information of occasions add that any notion of the studios newest proposal being the very best and ultimate provide from the AMPTP is “really premature,” as one put it.
In the lead as much as the studios proposal attending to SAG-AFTRA, there have been additionally conversations between the 2 sides right now and Thursday. As one adamant insider insisted: “they’re all back-channeling.”
Although Deadline solely reported that the 2 sides didn’t meet Thursday, in truth SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP reps did have a dialog later that night time. However, regardless of the guild making identified its frustrations with the studios’ elongated response time, that communication didn’t lead to a proper reply from the studios to both the guild’s newest AI proposal of greater than two days in the past, or the “comprehensive counter” of six days in the past.
The two sides have been in a renewed spherical of talks since October 24, each in-person and nearly.
As they had been for the ultimate and profitable classes with the WGA again in September, NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley, Disney’s Bob Iger, Warner Bros Discovery’s David Zaslav and Netflix’s Ted Sarandos have been taking part on this spherical of discussions with SAG-AFTRA to various levels. The CEOs Gang of Four have been deeply concerned in crafting the response to SAG-AFTRA’s proposals and are anticipated to be additional involced both in particular person or digital with guild president Fran Drescher, chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland and others for not less than the beginning of extra talks over the subsequent few days
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, Fran Drescher, Ted Sarandos, Bob Iger, David Zaslav and Donna Langley
Getty/Courtesy
At the identical time, much like what we noticed with the WGA when that guild was on strike there was a relentless sniping and whispering marketing campaign in opposition to the SAG-AFTRA management from the opposite aspect. Additionally, the notion throughout the guild is the AMPTP have employed a divide and conquer tactic between management and members — strikes that appear to have been dramatically unsuccessful to this point.
Earlier right now, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher posted on Instagram, “TGIF! Let’s hope the amptp ceo’s resurface with a seal the deal counter!”
One govt supply tells us there may be a requirement by SAG-AFTRA for stunt males and stunt girls to have the flexibility to resolve what their digital stunt doubles appear like. That’s “a decision typically made by directors” per one insider, including it’s merely out of the guild’s jurisdiction. Another studio supply tells us that there are asks by the actors guild to restrict the variety of digital extras that can be utilized in a given scene at anybody time. One consequence of this may be to retain extra real-life actors on display screen within the background.
On one degree, the studios’ delay in responding to SAG-AFTRA’s counter and AI proposal was a little bit of headscratcher because the conglomerates are brazenly anxious to restart TV and have manufacturing, they inform us.
There have been whispers that the New Line horror film, Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, is headed to the Max streaming service after the pic was pulled from its post-Labor Day 2022 theatrical launch. That can be a primary for the David Zaslav-led Warner Bros Discovery, which has sworn to not interact within the outdated administration’s tactic of direct-to-streaming motion pictures. “Max really needs content for next year,” mentioned one trade supply in regards to the shortage of product the streamer is dealing with. Ditto for the theatrical schedule. The shifting of three huge tentpoles — Mission: Impossible 8, Disney/Pixar’s Elio, and Disney’s Snow White — to 2025 may lead to an estimated $1.5 billion hit to subsequent yr’s field workplace returns.
On Thursday throughout Paramount Global’s quarterly earnings name, shareholders had been knowledgeable that the corporate took a $60 million hit in “strike-related idle costs.” CEO Bob Bakish on the decision famous that the studio’s 2024 theatrical movie schedule was shaken up and that “the scripted side of TV is still strike impacted.”
That’s small change in comparison with what California and leisure staff are experiencing within the fallout of labor unrest. The state’s economic system has misplaced an estimated $6.5 billion as a result of WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes shutting overwhelming majority of manufacturing down. The leisure trade has seen north of 45,000 jobs misplaced for the reason that scribes went on strike in early May and the actors guild hit the picket traces in mid-July.