The entertainment industry is still struggling to recover from the Hollywood strikes three years ago, but film and television actors and producers were back at the table Monday to hammer out a new labor contract.
Many of the key issues are the same — how the rise of artificial intelligence and streaming have changed the business. But the landscape in which these talks are taking place is quite different. The industry shrunk after the 2023 strikes, and jobs are dwindling.
Kate Fortmueller, an associate professor of film and media history at Georgia State University, is writing a book on the subject.
“I’ve talked to a lot of people who felt like they were really just kind of barely scraping by and trying to figure out what they wanted to do, because this just doesn’t feel sustainable to them,” she said.
Studios have been cutting costs amid intense competition, and overseas tax breaks are pulling jobs elsewhere. Streaming has changed the model too, said Todd Holmes, associate professor of entertainment media management at California State University, Northridge.
“Streaming now is a dominant distribution platform now over broadcast and cable TV,” he said. “Just that the streamers, for the longest time, were just trying to ramp up their subscriber numbers, whereas now they’re more focused on profitability.”
Against this backdrop, the studios and SAG-AFTRA — the union that also represents Marketplace employees — are planning to hold initial talks over the next four weeks.
The key areas to be hammered out between the two sides are thought to be similar to last time — improving compensation over streaming content and “AI, AI, AI,” said Schuyler Moore, a partner at L.A.-based law firm Greenberg Glusker.
“People don’t want to admit it, but AI is replacing below-the-line crew, it’s replacing special effects houses, it’s replacing the need for directors on a lot of shoots,” he said.
The cost savings are too enticing for studios, Moore said, which may leave actors and writers no choice but to strike again.
Tom Nunan, founder of the independent production company Bull’s Eye Entertainment, said he doesn’t think “the will is there” for that.
“The combo platter of the pandemic, and then the labor strikes, the fires in Los Angeles, and then all of this consolidation — it’s really just been an overwhelming, uncertain, and awful time,” he said.
Nunan said how the negotiations will go ultimately depends on tone. And, so far, all sides have been sounding more conciliatory than they had been prior to the strikes in 2020 to 2023.
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