Emmy postponed! How will Hollywood's strike last for more than 100 days end?

August 13, 2023 | Issue 3326

August 9, the 100th day of the Hollywood strike. Following the strike statement issued by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) on May 1, the Screen Actors Guild of America (SAG-AFTRA) also announced its participation in the strike movement on July 14.

The New York Times believes that due to the difficulty of resolving relevant demands quickly, the strike may continue until 2024, which will create another "first" in Hollywood history.

At present, the strike has caused many movie stars such as Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, Jason Statham and other movie stars to miss the premiere of the starring film, "Deadpool 3", "Mission Impossible 8", "Venom 3" and many other works have been suspended, and the Emmy Awards originally scheduled for this fall will also be postponed to January next year. In addition, inspired by the strike of screenwriters and actors, the visual effects staff of Marvel Studios also decided to form their own union to unite to protest the oppression of the film side and protect their rights and interests.

So far, what are the new demands of the negotiating parties? How long will this vigorous strike last?

Before understanding the strike incident, let's first understand the protagonists of this "battle" and their spheres of influence. The Screenwriters Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild and the United Radio and Television Artists Union represent the "film and television workers", and the composition of the Film and Television Producers Union of America is the mainstream studios and streaming companies, representing the will of Hollywood producers.

Every three years, the trade union and the federation sign a new cooperation agreement, before the signing of the agreement, the two sides will start negotiations on the contradictions arising from the implementation of the contract in previous years, and the effective resolution of the contradiction will enter a new implementation cycle, and the failure of the negotiation will trigger a strike protest.

The last time the Screen Actors Guild went on strike with the American Writers Guild was in 1960. At that time, the parties were fighting for a more reasonable distribution of income in pay-TV. After 63 years, traditional media has declined and streaming media has become popular, and the core demand of the strike of the two unions is to increase the long-term revenue share of film and television works on streaming media platforms.

In the era when TV stations are the main broadcast channels, screenwriters and actors not only receive salaries, but also receive "replay fees" for subsequent broadcasts of programs on other platforms, that is, secondary salaries. For young actors and screenwriters, if they are lucky enough to participate in an evergreen work, their professional income will be relatively stable, and their secondary salary will even exceed the initial salary.

But the rules of the industry have changed in the streaming era. More and more film and television works are premiered on the Internet, or only released in streaming media, and streaming media such as Netflix have broken the previous sharing model by buying out the copyright of the work at a high price. As a result, the annual income of streaming CEOs exceeds the combined salary of 11,000 people in the entire screenwriting industry.

In the face of huge income disparities and extremely unbalanced labor-management relations, actors and screenwriters naturally emerged. At present, they have two requirements for compensation. The first is to increase the basic salary. The union proposed that the minimum salary for all screenwriters and secondary pay increase by 6%, 5% and 5% over the next three years. The response was that the minimum salary would increase by 4%, 3% and 2% for three years, and the secondary salary would only increase by 2% or 2.5% at one time.

The second is to increase the initial salary and secondary salary treatment. The union proposed that streaming feature films with budgets greater than $12 million should be treated equally for theatrical films, and that the corresponding standards for playback and initial and secondary compensation should be clarified. The response of the management is that works with a budget of not less than 40 million US dollars and a duration of more than 96 minutes can be considered for corresponding treatment, and the initial remuneration can be increased by 9%, but the secondary salary will not be increased.

It can be seen that secondary remuneration is a condition for both labor and management to compete for the highest. The core creative team hopes to allocate a part of the platform's profits to increase the income of labor and creative contributors, but if the platform provides a share, it is bound to give up the practice of buying out the copyright at a high price.

In fact, streaming media not only affects salary, but also changes the number of jobs and industry ecology. In the past, TV series were longer per season, mostly around 22 episodes, and writers had a guaranteed working time for 20-24 weeks. However, most of the episodes on streaming platforms are in the form of 12 episodes, and the number of screenwriters has seriously declined.

Moreover, corporate consolidation and genre mergers within Hollywood have created resource monopolies, with a handful of companies controlling the production and distribution of almost all entertainment content in the United States, making it easier for them to lower the wages of film and television workers and impose onerous terms for their reemployment. For example, after Disney acquired 21st Century Fox in 2019, it trapped actors in exclusive contracts and prevented them from doing other work.

At the beginning of the project, the producer will require the screenwriter to write a story outline or synopsis first, once the content is not selected, the previous time and energy are lost, and the second writing does not pay the manuscript. If the content of the script is approved, the platform may also choose a young, lower-paid screenwriting team to continue or rewrite the script, and will not renew the contract with the original screenwriter.

In addition, the streaming "mini screenwriting room" does not allow screenwriters to come to the set, nor does it allow access to actors, making them completely screws on the assembly line. In general, the screenwriter's workload is large, the income is less, the risk is high, the initiative is weak, and the interests are obviously damaged.

Even Hollywood movie stars can't resist the impact of streaming. In July 2021, the Marvel movie "Black Widow" was released in the United States for only three days, and it was simultaneously launched on the streaming platform Disney+. The film's starring Scarlett Johansson was extremely dissatisfied with this and directly took Disney to court, making it pay tens of millions of dollars in box office dividends.

Currently, another important issue facing actors is AI technology. The coalition had proposed scanning the faces of actors or extras in the background and being able to "permanently own and use their likeness" in any project, which caused dissatisfaction among the vast group performers. Not long ago, the opening credits of the TV series "Secret Invasion" were generated with AI technology, and "Indiana Jones 5" used AI technology to generate the appearance of starring Harrison Ford when he was young.

The impact of AI technology on the industry is comprehensive. According to the 28 rule, AI technology has little effect on the top 20% of the group, and their strike may consider what kind of remuneration they can get from AI face change. The remaining 80% of the group can only passively wait for help in this strike.

With the consolidation of capital and the consolidation of industries, the diversity and selectivity of content is bound to weaken. This strike not only affected them at the march, but also you and me in front of the screen.

【Text/Enron】