No trick, no trick: SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP end talks for today and resume Wednesday

EXCLUSIVE: There will be no tricks tonight as SAG-AFTRA and the studios plan to continue talks in the coming days in search of a deal to end the 110-day strike that has become a Hollywood nightmare.

It is said that the consultations between the Actors Guild and the AMPTP have been concluded for today.

This Halloween, the festivities began as planned in the middle of the morning and ended around 2:00 PM PT. Sources on both sides tell Deadline that the guild and the AMPTP are planning further discussions for Wednesday, November 1. If necessary, further consultations are planned in the second half of the week, a source close to the talks said.

“This is where people earn their salaries, it’s the hard work to make sure everyone has something to get by,” says an industry insider of the final days of negotiations, noting that there is “still much is to be done.” a new three-year contract is signed.

Neither SAG-AFTRA nor AMPTP responded to Deadline’s request for comment on the status of the talks. If so, we’ll update this post.

Returning to Tuesday’s call, after working “independently” on October 30, Actors Guild chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland held direct virtual talks with AMPTP boss Carol Lombardini. At the same time, small groups of lawyers and other specialists delved into the details of specific topics.

Against the backdrop of Halloween, these conversations took place as hundreds of guild members, many in costume, answered SAG-AFTRA’s call and took to the streets of LA and NYC on Tuesday — some even following last week’s much-mocked guild guidelines, without wear. clothes “costumes inspired by flashy content,” taking a swipe at studio executives in the process.

In the union solidarity we’ve seen during this now 110-day strike and the WGA’s past and present actions, leaders from the AFL-CIO, the Women’s National Basketball Players Association and the National Football League Players Association joined SAG -AFTRA on Tuesday.

Despite a second round of renewed talks that began on October 24, a message from the guild to members last night said that SAG-AFTRA and the studios are “far apart on important issues.” One of the main topics of AI and the so-called “performance-based compensation” for the casting of successful streaming shows and films, is said.

Still, sources on both sides this week tempered expectations of a quick deal, expressing “cautious optimism” about the state of affairs and the direction of talks.

It appeared there was a big meeting in the middle over the weekend about performance-based compensation for artists on streaming series, with SAG-AFTRA’s biggest reported request to studios before Friday being a 9% increase in minimums. The AMPTP increased its previous offer of 5%, which it had negotiated with the WGA, to 7% for the Actors Guild, which had originally asked for 11%. Studio sources expected terms for AI to ease once the streaming revenue portion of the new contract was determined. Not so fast.

As Crabtree-Ireland told Deadline on Monday about the protest, “People seem to think we’re at a point where we’re just dotting the i’s and dotting the t’s.” The guild leader further explained: “This is not the case; There are content issues, we are still working hard to close real gaps.”

While studio sources told Deadline that they made “significant and revolutionary” concessions to the AI ​​from the start and that there was “nothing to complain about,” according to insiders, SAG-AFTRA never saw it that way and insisted on protecting agreements. for extras and “informed consent” for all artists, especially regarding franchise-eligible content. In short, an extra cannot be paid just for one time and the image can be used by a studio forever.

SAG-AFTRA has suspended operations at all other LA studios and will be at Disney tomorrow as Unity Picket in what many thought would be a celebratory gathering. The guild’s focus on Disney on Nov. 1 comes on the same day that Mouse House and Comcast could officially begin the expensive process of buying up the rest of Hulu — a price tag expected to be well over $10 billion for Disney. when they take the first step.

With that in mind, studios are scrambling to restart incomplete film productions, some of which have already been leased overseas to begin filming as soon as news of a new deal breaks.

The question is whether SAG-AFTRA will repeat what the WKV has done and allow members to return to work during the treaty ratification process. That’s no small task for a 160,000-member union given its size, but it was held back from this 12,000-member guild by the studios and WGA earlier this month.

If the actors’ guild lifts the so-called preliminary injunction when voting on a possible preliminary contract, Deadpool 3, Beetlejuice, Gladiator 2 and Mission: Impossible 8, among others, will finish filming.

Also at the top of studios’ list when a strike is called: end ADR for motion pictures. Given the number of voice actors in Sony’s next sequel, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, the film’s release date has yet to be determined. When it’s done, it could rake in hundreds of millions by a miserable 2024, with Mission: Impossible 8 expected to take in about $1.5 billion at the global box office due to “Snow White” and “Elios” being off schedule not. As spring films like “Quiet Place: Day One” approach summer, gaps are starting to appear, and an inconsistent amount of product releases like in 2021 and 2022 will hurt business, which is strained for debt-laden theaters after the Covid recovery. .

Tearlach Hutcheson, VP, film at Studio Movie Grill, said of the changing 2024 cinema schedule: “Without consistent offerings, we allow different habits to form and audiences to stop coming to theaters.” He added: “It took a long time. time for people to come back to theaters, and if we don’t have a product, we have to start all over again.”

The biggest pain is likely to be felt by workers who have had to sell or mortgage their homes and pay into IRAs to survive, as the entertainment industry has lost 45,000 jobs due to twin strikes in the past six months. . These job losses, as well as production disruptions and supplier battles, have resulted in more than $6.5 billion in damage to California’s economy, in part due to ongoing labor action.