The U.S. film industry is now, for all intents and purposes, dead. The Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) has announced that they will go on strike, joining the Writers Guild of America on the picket lines. The vote was unanimous by SAG-AFTRA’s board after talks with studios completely broke down yesterday during a last-ditch effort to try to keep actors working — not that they were doing much of that anyway with the writer’s strike going on.
The strike is a huge one, sidelining every famous actor you can think of since not being part of SAG-AFTRA basically means not working in Hollywood. It’s also historic as the union hasn’t gone on strike since the 1980s, and it has been more than 60 years since concurrent strikes with both actors and writers occurred. There are 160,000 SAG-AFTRA members that run the gamut from massive stars like Meryl Streep to “that guy who you remember from that one show.” This means the few actors who were still able to work on films that had completed scripts will now be stopping, effectively halting film, TV, and radio production in Hollywood.
The sticking point with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) appears to be arguments over streaming residuals and income and the ever-present threat of AI to the creative process. The negotiations with AMPTP had looked hopeful after a brief extension was granted to their contract at the end of June for the two sides to negotiate more, but things fell apart yesterday when the studios blindsided SAG-AFTRA by requesting federal mediation and another extension. Obviously, those requests were not met.
What does this mean for us, the viewers and consumers of the content writers and actors make? Well, for now, we won’t see much of an impact, but sometime next year things are going to start drying up as everything in the works right now will simply stop. Yes, that even means Hugh Jackman will have to take off his yellow Wolverine costume. Basically, if this doesn’t get wrapped up quickly, six-to-12 months from now you’ll be seeing a lot of reruns on TV and anniversary re-releases in theaters to fill up screens.