The Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) has commenced a strike against Hollywood executives and studios demanding better pay, fair wages and increased safeguarding around AI rights. The actors union now joins more than 11,000 movie and television writers from the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) currently striking for similar reasons as Hollywood comes to a halt.
Recent failed negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers means that the industry and Hollywood has immediately halted all movie and television productions amidst the ongoing strike. “We are the victims here,” said Fran Drescher, president of the actors union. “We are being victimized by a very greedy entity. I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us.”
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Drescher’s response is targeted at Hollywood executives who recently stated that they’d try and prolong the strike as much as possible for writers. “The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” said one moustache-twirling Hollywood executive.
Recently, the cast of Christopher Nolan’s upcoming biopic thriller Oppenheimer left the movie’s London premiere mid-way yesterday in order to join the strike, which included actors such as Matt Damon, Emily Blunt and Cillian Murphy. Nolan said that the cast were “off to write their picket signs.”
Among the in-production movies impacted by the strike were Deadpool 3, which immediately seized production, as well as Gladiator 2, the Beetlejuice sequel and more.
The WGA has been on strike since May and is currently seeking higher compensation and residuals as well as new rules that will require studios to hire writing staff for television shows with a certain number of writers for a specific period. Additionally, the WGA is also seeking compensation for the unpaid work writers put into script revisions and rewrites.
Source: CNBC
