Hollywood actors could go on strike in the next few hours. The studies have not approached positions with the Screen Actors Guild, the union chaired by Fran Drescher (The Nanny), and the few active shootings in the United States could find themselves without actors to continue normally. Nor could agreements be reached for future projects. And, in this climate of instability for the industry, it has just been leaked that the scriptwriters, who have been on strike since May 2, are not even close to reaching an agreement due to some studies that want to make the most of the rope.
From the beginning it had been speculated that, if the writers left their functions, the strike could reach September. In recent years they had seen how their trade had eroded at a forced march and they were not going to accept a minimum agreement. Solutions had to be obtained for certain problems: the disappearance of the mini-rooms for scriptwriters that imply a precariousness of the profession, guarantees against artificial intelligence, the increase in residual benefits due to the success of works in streaming and an increase in minimum fees.
But, with the actors about to join the strike, there is not even an agreement on the horizon because the intention of the AMPTP, the alliance of film and television producers, is to extend the strike “until the end of October”. , as revealed by a trusted man of this employer to Deadline. This was the plan from the beginning because, as reported by the American media, the studies understand that this is a key moment for their business. And, with movie theaters not offering the figures of before the pandemic and a streaming market where making a profit is making it difficult for studios, they do not want to improve the working conditions of creatives.
The objective is directly to allow the strike to continue “until the union members start to lose their apartments and lose their houses,” according to an executive consulted. The executives hope that, seeing their ability to survive in jeopardy, the members of the writers’ union will pressure their leaders to accept a contract favorable to the bosses, and it is for this reason that the AMPTP and the Writers Guild of America do not even They have sat down in recent weeks to negotiate a new agreement.
Since the strike began at the beginning of May, Hollywood has been practically completely paralyzed by the pickets in front of the filming and the number of productions closed due to not being able to change a single comma in the scripts. Yes, even finished scripts have to be modified on set, and by not being able to do so, production companies risk a worse final product.
But this time the strike helps the studios to kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, they neutralize the contractual improvements of the scriptwriters, who in 2021 already fought with their representation agencies over the pinch they took from their contracts and which was seen from the offices as a terrible precedent. On the other hand, the production costs of series and films that are not being made are saved, helping to clean up the accounts of the companies.
Contents, for the moment, they are not lacking. Perhaps the conventional channels find themselves without series to broadcast in the fall or with just a handful of episodes, but the streaming platforms, which tend to produce with a long margin of time, still have releases in store to be able to hold out. In addition, they see reality television and foreign production as two fields from which to extract content for the public.
It should be remembered that in 2007-2008, when there was the previous strike, the United States was not as accustomed to consuming foreign production as it is today. Now, on the other hand, Netflix can find phenomena from foreign markets such as Spanish, which gave them Money Heist or Elite, or Korean, with El juego del squid, La gloria or Estamos muertos as examples.
And, taking into account that these productions are cheaper than the North American ones, this stimulates savings at a time when they are desperately looking for it, as shown by recent movements such as the removal of content from the Disney and HBO Max catalogs.
