Throughout this year questions have risen on the absence of film and TV, but this can be easily explained with the event that just changed the film industry for entertainers: the most prolonged actors strike in Hollywood history. The strike has affected the actual release of certain projects as well as the advertisements and promotions of new movies and television shows as entertainers were instructed not to do so by the Screen Actors Guild. Entertainers of SAG began their fight for better residuals, protection from artificial intelligence and a basic pay increase on July 14.
There’s no doubt that SAG-AFTRA strikes impacted the Hollywood industry and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
“Even after the strike ends, it will take time for business activities to normalize due to the concentration of productions and theatrical releases, so we expect this to have a negative impact on next fiscal year’s results,” Sony Executives said.
Even though the strikes have ended, and a new contract has been agreed to, things won’t necessarily go back to normal just yet.
Christi Carras from the LA Times, adding to the previous quote’s point said, “For the industry to return to normal, some studio executives speculate that it may take until 2026 or 2027 for the industry to fully rebound to pre-pandemic levels.”
It’s essential to know the context surrounding the time when the strikes started. The two major hits that Hollywood has taken within the last three years have genuinely been detrimental.
“The movie industry was still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic when two of the most essential parts of the Hollywood machine — writers and actors — went on twin strikes,” Carras said.
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland is the National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator of SAG-AFTRA and spoke about the impact of the recent strikes on Hollywood as well as its impact on the future and its employees.
“Just a very basic middle-class career as performers has been almost out of reach,” Crabtree-Ireland said. “When we look back … we will say this [labor negotiation] was a moment that really changed a number of things about the industry in a positive direction.”
Although it’s made many milestones, this isn’t the first time Hollywood has been on strike. Past SAG strikes have happened throughout the 1900s and 2000s.
So, how is this strike different from the others?
This is the first time that the writers and actors of Hollywood have fought side by side and started a work stoppage simultaneously in 63 years. Significant new technological advancements, such as artificial intelligence, also caused waves of problems for the actors.
As the entertainment industry moves forward, many challenges arise with it. With the growth of technology stemming from AI, the Writers Guild of America has been fighting against this invisible enemy throughout their strike along with SAG-AFTRA. Although they are in the ring with the same opponent, the two unions fight for different titles.
The movie industry is infamously known to be hard to break into. Recently it has been infinitely more difficult as an actor or writer’s breakthrough could be eliminated by a robot.
“The lack of work was scary. Even though being an actor is always unpredictable, the lack of opportunities felt scary,” Molly McCook, who played Mandy Baxter on Last Man Standing said.
The actress also noted the financial stress and the lack of opportunity that lay on her and her husband as homeowners.
The prevention of AI replacing actors on set was a massive topic for these strikes, and a similar issue was occurring with the Writers Guild of America. These struggles are not selective as they are relatable across the board.
“Now we’ve got streaming shows up and all these residuals that we used to have from when they sold DVDs or VHS or sold to basic cable, those all created little checks that actors lived off of in the long gap between jobs, because it’s hard to get a job as an actor,” Jason George, Grey’s Anatomy actor said.
George also emphasized the struggle that actors go through beyond residual paychecks. After all, you can’t get paid for something AI did for you. Shows like Grey’s Anatomy, with episodes on Hulu Plus, fuboT, and Netflix, are struggling hugely from lack of residual income.
“You get nothing. Residual checks on shows are nothing. If you’re doing a show and you’re not an executive producer and own it, then you get residuals which can amount to checks from $2 to $2,000 a year,” Bob Saget, who famously played Danny Tanner on Full House said.
Since streaming services have sky-rocketed, residuals have plummeted for actors and writers alike. Studios have set the system up so that each show on their service gets the same amount of residual money based on the number of subscribers they have. Regardless of how successful or unsuccessful a show may be, the earnings are all the same.
“They (movie studios) think they’re going to wear us down but we are way stronger than they are,” Rachel Meinerding, Co-Founder of Concept Art Association and a significant part of the strike organization process said.
The Hollywood happy ending we were all hoping for came to fruition on November 9, 2023, when the new contract for SAG actors was implemented. The new contract includes many things the SAG-AFTRA Union fought for; “higher wages, streaming bonuses, and protection on AI,” Wesley Stenzel and Devan Coggan from Entertainment Daily said.
