Understanding the film business / Awards

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variety.com/2023/film/news/celebrities-actors-strike-picket-line-1235678723/

Why Haven’t A-List Stars Joined the SAG-AFTRA Picket Line?

In reality, industrial action is more for the benefit of those in the lowest in the totem pole.


The article mentions that A-listers also sometimes act as producers...

I think one factor is that they are caught in between -- they could be in the middle of talks for a major project...

Some people tweeted ( not sure if this is verified) that Hugh and Ryan did not sign the letter of intent to authorize the strike?

It would be a bit hypocritical because they were in the midst of the big preparations for their new movie...and also knowing how the news of Hugh's return was met by fans ( broke the internet!).

Hope industrial peace returns soon.


Jo

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Hope someone is brokering industrial peace. The twin success stories of Barbie & Oppenheimer say that movie audiences love movies! And coming out of the pandemic, this is the best time to make more that pleases the cinemagoers. To have a long disruption is not doing anyone good for both sides.

Jo

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Hollywood’s superstars are answering the call from the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, donating $1 million or more each to help their fellow performers during the ongoing actors and writers strikes.

Over the past three weeks, the Foundation has raised over $15 million from a growing list of $1 million donors to the Foundation’s Emergency Financial Assistance Program, including:

George and Amal Clooney

Luciana and Matt Damon

Leonardo DiCaprio

Hugh Jackman and Deborra-lee Furness

Dwayne Johnson

Nicole Kidman

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck

Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively

Jo

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List is now longer --

www.indiewire.com/news/breaking-news/strike-stars-donate-sag-aftra-foundation-1234891007/

George and Amal Clooney
Luciana and Matt Damon
Leonardo DiCaprio
Hugh Jackman and Deborra-lee Furness
Dwayne Johnson
Nicole Kidman
Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck
Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively
Julia Roberts
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Meryl Streep
Oprah Winfrey

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Disney's financial problems are not confined to the relatively poor performance in theme park revenues. A major concern is the recent decline in the success of Marvel Studio films.

Re Marvel losing its way --

variety.com/2023/tv/news/secret-invasion-ending-future-marvel-cinematic-universe-1235685163/




I hope Kevin Feige does not try to fiddle with the creative direction of DP-3 that can affect its appeal to fans of the 2 characters. The only strong point that is holding up its promise for box office glory is the return of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. At least Ryan and his team ( who succeeded with the first 2 movies) and Shwan Levy are in the writing and producing team.

Rob Leifeld ( creator of Deadpool) seems positive about its direction -- he is in the slate of writers - hope his optimism is well-founded.

Of course, the movies talked about in the article which were box office duds were sequels that Kevin et al wanted for Disney tentpoles to succeed the original box office successes -- but if the storyline and the characters are not rich in essence, then they were empty creative gestures. XMen, incl Deadpool, has a rich history - and exploring it further insofar as Wolverine & Deadpool are concerned is founded on good fundamentals.

The adventures of Wolverine had a long series of comicbook successes -- the film adaptations essentially followed those success paths. They were proven material which fans fully supported. I think the Marvel sequels were largely unproven because it did not have the literary ( if we can use the term for comicbooks) approval that the originals of the XMen film adaptations had. The Marvel sequels were likely new inventions, in terms of storylines and new characters?


Jo

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Disney's earnings call report is drawing attention for the wave of change that is slated for the future.

AUGUST 9, 2023
Disney CEO Bob Iger Addresses Future Plans on Q3 2023 Earnings Call
The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) reported its third quarter earnings on Wednesday, posting revenues of $22.3 billion—a 4% growth from the previous year.

Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger told analysts on the post-earnings call that “in the eight months since I returned, we’ve undertaken an unprecedented transformation at Disney, and this quarter’s earnings reflect some of what we have accomplished.”




A few achievements since Iger’s return that he highlighted in his comments include:

The company was completely restructured, restoring creativity to the center of the business
Important management changes and efficiency improvements to create a more cost-effective, coordinated, and streamlined approach to operations
Aggressive costs reductions across the enterprise, with the company on track to exceed its initial goal of $5.5 billion dollars in savings
The company has improved its direct-to-consumer (DTC) operating income by roughly $1 billion in just three quarters, as Disney continues to work toward achieving DTC profitability by the end of FY 2024, in a challenging environment
“I’m pleased with how much we have gotten done in such a short period of time, but I also know we have a lot more to do,” Iger said. “As I’ve said before, our progress will not always be linear. But despite near-term headwinds, I’m incredibly confident in Disney’s long-term trajectory because of the work we’ve done, the team we have in place, and because of Disney’s core intellectual property foundation.”




He asserted that “moving forward, I believe three businesses will drive the greatest growth and value creation over the next five years. They are our film Studios, our Parks business, and Streaming – all of which are inextricably linked to our brands and franchises.”




In addition to discussing the company’s financial results for the third quarter, Iger offered insight on the company’s upcoming opportunities as they relate to Disney’s parks business, streaming, ESPN, and more.

Meaningful Streaming Progress and Optimism

In terms of Disney’s direct-to-consumer business, Iger affirmed that since his return “we’ve reset the whole business around economics designed to deliver significant, sustained profitability.”

“We’re prioritizing the strength of our brands and franchises, we’re rationalizing the volume of content we make, what we spend, and what markets we invest in,” he said. “We are deploying the technology necessary to both improve the user experience as well as the economics of this business. We’re harnessing windowing opportunities, perfecting our pricing and marketing strategies, maximizing our enormous advertising potential, and we’re making extensive Hulu content available to bundle subscribers via Disney+.”

Iger pointed out that as he announced last quarter, “We’re moving closer toward a more unified one-app experience domestically, to pair high-quality general entertainment with content from our popular brands and franchises for our bundle subscribers. It’s a formula for success that we have already proven in international markets with our Star offering on Disney+.”

“We see a future where consumers can access even more of the company’s streaming content all in one place, resulting in higher user engagement, lower churn, and greater opportunities for advertisers,” he said.

Iger also announced that at the end of the third quarter, the company had signed up 3.3 million subscribers to the ad-supported Disney+ option and that since its inception, 40% of new Disney+ subscribers are choosing an ad-supported product. The ad-supported Disney+ offering will become available in Canada and in select markets across Europe beginning November 1. A new ad-free bundled subscription plan featuring Disney+ and Hulu will also be available in the U.S. on September 6.




The company also released details regarding upcoming subscription price changes for Disney+, Hulu and Hulu + Live TV, ESPN+, and The Bundle. Pricing for standalone ad-supported Disney+ and Hulu offerings will remain unchanged.

Opportunities for ESPN

Disney’s ambitions in the streaming world will also extend to ESPN.

“Taking our ESPN flagship channels direct to consumer is not a matter of if, but when,” Iger said. “And the team is hard at work looking at all components of this decision, including pricing and timing.”

On Tuesday, the company also announced that ESPN and PENN Entertainment have entered an exclusive licensing arrangement that expands the ESPN brand into the growing world of sports betting.

“This licensing deal will offer a compelling new experience for sports fans that will enhance consumer engagement,” Iger said. “We’re excited to offer this to the many fans who have long been asking for it.”

He also reiterated that “overall, we’re considering potential strategic partnerships for ESPN, looking at distribution, technology, marketing, and content opportunities where we retain control of ESPN.”

“We’ve received notable interest from many different entities, and we look forward to sharing more details at a later date when we are further along in this process,” he said.




Continued Strength at Disney Parks and Experiences


“What sets Disney apart are the numerous ways we’re able to reach consumers with the stories and characters they love, including in our Parks and Resorts,” Iger said. “We’ll be opening new Frozen-themed lands at Hong Kong Disneyland and Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris, as well as a Zootopia-themed land at Shanghai Disney Resort. And later down the road, we will be bringing an Avatar experience to Disneyland, reinforcing the unrivaled worldwide appeal of our brands and franchises.”

He added that “our Parks and Experiences segment overall has had an impressive streak.”

Iger pointed out that “our Cruise Line in particular showed strong revenue and operating-income growth in the third quarter. Current Q4 booked occupancy for our existing fleet of five ships is at 98%, and we will be expanding our fleet by adding two more ships in fiscal 2025 and another in fiscal 2026, nearly doubling our worldwide capacity.”

And, in addition to Disneyland Resort, the company’s international parks were a driver of strong segment results for the quarter as well.

“Our Asia Parks have been doing exceptionally well, reinforcing a clear opportunity for continued growth,” he said. “Both Shanghai Disney Resort and Hong Kong Disneyland have experienced stronger than expected recoveries from the pandemic, and in Q3 they both grew meaningfully in revenue, operating income, and attendance.”

Iger noted that “we saw softer performance at Walt Disney World from the prior year, coming off our highly successful 50th Anniversary celebration.”

“However, Walt Disney World is still performing well above pre-COVID levels – 21% higher in revenue and 29% higher in operating income compared to FY2019, adjusting for Starcruiser accelerated depreciation,” he added. “And following a number of recent changes we’ve implemented, we continue to see positive guest experience ratings in our theme parks, including Walt Disney World, and positive indicators for guests looking to book future visits. This includes strong demand for our newly returned Annual Passes.”

Iger also said that “we are making numerous investments globally to grow our Parks business over the next five years, and I’m very optimistic about the future of this business over the long-term.”





Maximizing our Film Studios


As for Disney’s film studios, Iger said that “we are focused on improving the quality of our films, and on better economics – not just reducing the number of titles we release, but also the cost per title. And we’re maximizing the full impact of our titles by embracing the multiple distribution windows at our disposal, enabling consumers to access our content in multiple ways.”

“By focusing on big franchises and tentpole films, we’re able to generate interest in our existing library,” he added. “For example, we’re seeing tremendous engagement on Disney+ with the previous Guardians of the Galaxy films, the original Avatar, and the first four Indiana Jones movies.

Iger concluded his remarks by saying that “in spite of a challenging environment in the near-term, I’m overwhelmingly bullish about Disney’s future for the reasons I shared at the beginning of this call: The work we’ve done over these past eight months, our core foundation of creative excellence and iconic brands and franchises, and because of the unrivaled talent we have at every level here at Disney.”




The information above should be read together with the full Q3 FY23 Disney Earnings Report and earnings call (both available here), which discuss additional information, including additional challenges and risks the Company’s businesses face and additional information about Q3 FY23 performance.

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As for Disney’s film studios, Iger said that “we are focused on improving the quality of our films, and on better economics – not just reducing the number of titles we release, but also the cost per title. And we’re maximizing the full impact of our titles by embracing the multiple distribution windows at our disposal, enabling consumers to access our content in multiple ways.”

“By focusing on big franchises and tentpole films, we’re able to generate interest in our existing library,” he added. “For example, we’re seeing tremendous engagement on Disney+ with the previous Guardians of the Galaxy films, the original Avatar, and the first four Indiana Jones movies.

Iger concluded his remarks by saying that “in spite of a challenging environment in the near-term, I’m overwhelmingly bullish about Disney’s future for the reasons I shared at the beginning of this call: The work we’ve done over these past eight months, our core foundation of creative excellence and iconic brands and franchises, and because of the unrivaled talent we have at every level here at Disney.”

What is very telling is how much the market is appreciating his comments on the above in the light of the disappointing results for recent Marvel Studio releases, the Indy Jones financial debacle, the questionable appreciation of what the audience wants.

Disney has always been known for its films for the young market ( and its opportunities to sell related merchandise or other money-making chances). Its filmmaking ability was probably wrongfully enhanced when the series of Marvel blockbusters swept the markets away ( presumably because the market wanted something big and spectacular in a big way)...but now that the public seems to have lost its appetite for such kind of entertainment -- Disney is trying to find its way back.

Jo

[jo]

The Disney earnings call ... detailed business and financial report as of July 2023


thewaltdisneycompany.com/app/uploads/2023/08/Q3_FY23_Earnings_Presentation.pdf


Unable to reproduce these -- but you may want to focus on the stated " DRIVERS OF GROWTH - Studios & Streaming."

[jo]

The offer from the producers et al to WGA (as reported by Bloomberg) --

Bloomberg
Hollywood Studios Offer Writers a New Deal With Push From Netflix, Iger to End Strike
Story by Lucas Shaw and Thomas Buckley •
14h


(Bloomberg) -- Hollywood studios have made a new offer to striking screenwriters that includes concessions on issues such as the use of artificial intelligence and access to viewer data, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers, which represents big media companies such as Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. and Paramount Global, has agreed to ensure humans are credited as writers of screenplays, rather than replacing them with artificial intelligence. The companies will also share data on the number of hours viewed on streaming services, so writers can see how popular their programs are, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private negotiations.

Hollywood Studios And Striking Writers Set To Meet Friday
© Photographer: David Swanson/Bloomberg

Netflix Co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos has emerged as a strong force seeking to reach a deal with the writers, according to the people. More recently Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger has joined him in pressing for an agreement.

The Writers Guild of America, which represents some 11,500 scribes nationally, went on strike May 2, seeking higher pay and other changes to a contract they said hadn’t kept pace with the rise of streaming TV and other technologies. The strike, coupled with one by screen actors that began in July, has largely shut down production of new films and scripted TV shows.


The guild and the studios met on Aug. 11, when the new terms were delivered. They’re scheduled to meet again Tuesday to discuss the union’s response.

Other parts of the offer include a better-than-20% increase in residual payments made to writers when their shows appear on networks other than the original one they were made for. They’ve also proposed salary increases and a minimum duration of work for writers in “mini-rooms,” where a smaller number of scribes work before a show is picked up or renewed.

The studios are offering a 5% hike in base pay in the first year, an increase from their previous 4% offer. The writers have been asking for a 6% raise in the first year of the three-year contract.

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Even the supposed critics's roles are changing.

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WOW -- big issue. Disney is facing shareholder lawsuit over accountability & truth in reporting over its streaming business!

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Expose on ROTTEN TOMATOES --

The Decomposition of Rotten Tomatoes The most overrated metric in movies is erratic, reductive, and easily hacked — and yet has Hollywood in its grip.

By Lane Brown With reporting by Luke Winkie

Photo: Bobby Doherty
This article was featured in One Great Story, New York’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly.

In 2018, a movie-publicity company called Bunker 15 took on a new project: Ophelia, a feminist retelling of Hamlet starring Daisy Ridley. Critics who had seen early screenings had published 13 reviews, seven of them negative, which translated to a score of 46 percent on the all-important aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes — a disappointing outcome for a film with prestige aspirations and no domestic distributor.

But just because the “Tomatometer” says a title is “rotten” — scoring below 60 percent — it doesn’t need to stay that way. Bunker 15 went to work. While most film-PR companies aim to get the attention of critics from top publications, Bunker 15 takes a more bottom-up approach, recruiting obscure, often self-published critics who are nevertheless part of the pool tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. In another break from standard practice, several critics say, Bunker 15 pays them $50 or more for each review. (These payments are not typically disclosed, and Rotten Tomatoes says it prohibits “reviewing based on a financial incentive.”)

In October of that year, an employee of the company emailed a prospective reviewer about Ophelia: “It’s a Sundance film and the feeling is that it’s been treated a bit harshly by some critics (I’m sure sky-high expectations were the culprit) so the teams involved feel like it would benefit from more input from different critics.”

“More input from different critics” is not very subtle code, and the prospective critic wrote back to ask what would happen if he hated the film. The Bunker 15 employee replied that of course journalists are free to write whatever they like but that “super nice ones (and there are more critics like this than I expected)” often agreed not to publish bad reviews on their usual websites but to instead quarantine them on “a smaller blog that RT never sees. I think it’s a very cool thing to do.” If done right, the trick would help ensure that Rotten Tomatoes logged positive reviews but not negative ones.

Between October 2018 and January 2019, Rotten Tomatoes added eight reviews to Ophelia’s score. Seven were favorable, and most came from critics who have reviewed at least one other Bunker 15 movie. The writer of a negative review says that Bunker 15 lobbied them to change it; if the critic wanted to “give it a (barely) overall positive then I do know the editors at Rotten Tomatoes and can get it switched,” a Bunker 15 employee wrote. I also discovered another negative review of Ophelia from this period that was not counted by Rotten Tomatoes, by a writer whose positive reviews of other Bunker 15 films have been recorded by the aggregator. Ophelia climbed the Tomatometer to 62 percent, flipping from rotten to “fresh.” The next month, the distributor IFC Films announced that it had acquired Ophelia for release in the U.S.

Ophelia’s production company, Covert Media, didn’t return requests for comment. Bunker 15’s founder, Daniel Harlow, says, “Wow, you are really reaching there,” and disagrees with the suggestion that his company buys reviews to skew Rotten Tomatoes: “We have thousands of writers in our distribution list. A small handful have set up a specific system where filmmakers can sponsor or pay to have them review a film.” Noted.

The Ophelia affair is a useful microcosm for understanding how Rotten Tomatoes, which turned 25 in August, has come to function. The site was conceived in the early days of the web as a Hot or Not for movies. Now, it can make or break them — with implications for how films are perceived, released, marketed, and possibly even green-lit. The Tomatometer may be the most important metric in entertainment, yet it’s also erratic, reductive, and easily hacked.

“The studios didn’t invent Rotten Tomatoes, and most of them don’t like it,” says the filmmaker Paul Schrader. “But the system is broken. Audiences are dumber. Normal people don’t go through reviews like they used to. Rotten Tomatoes is something the studios can game. So they do.”

In a recent interview, Quentin Tarantino, whose next film is reportedly called The Movie Critic, admitted that he no longer reads critics’ work. “Today, I don’t know anyone,” he said (in a translation of his remarks, first published in French). “I’m told, ‘Manohla Dargis, she’s excellent.’ But when I ask what are the three movies she loved and the three she hated in the last few years, no one can answer me. Because they don’t care!”

This is probably because Rotten Tomatoes — with help from Yelp, Goodreads, and countless other review aggregators — has desensitized us to the opinions of individual critics. Once upon a time, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert turned the no-budget documentary Hoop Dreams into a phenomenon using only their thumbs. But critical power like that has been replaced by the collective voice of the masses. A third of U.S. adults say they check Rotten Tomatoes before going to the multiplex, and while movie ads used to tout the blurbage of Jeffrey Lyons and Peter Travers, now they’re more likely to boast that a film has been “Certified Fresh.”

To filmmakers across the taste spectrum, Rotten Tomatoes is a scourge. Martin Scorsese says it reduces the director “to a content manufacturer and the viewer to an unadventurous consumer.” Brett Ratner has called it “the destruction of our business.” But insiders acknowledge that it has become a crucial arbiter. Publicists say their jobs revolve around the site. “In the last ten years,” says one, “it’s become much more important as so many of the most trusted critics have retired without replacements.” Studios are so scared of what the Tomatometer might say that some work with a company called Screen Engine/ASI, which attempts to forecast scores. (“According to the studios, the predictions are very close,” says another publicist. I’ll refer to these informers, who asked for anonymity to speak candidly, as Publicists Nos. 1 and 2.) An indie-distribution executive says, “I put in our original business plan that we should not do films that score less than 80. Rotten Tomatoes is the only public stamp of approval that says, ‘This is of immense quality, and all critics agree.’”

But despite Rotten Tomatoes’ reputed importance, it’s worth a reminder: Its math stinks. Scores are calculated by classifying each review as either positive or negative and then dividing the number of positives by the total. That’s the whole formula. Every review carries the same weight whether it runs in a major newspaper or a Substack with a dozen subscribers.

If a review straddles positive and negative, too bad. “I read some reviews of my own films where the writer might say that he doesn’t think that I pull something off, but, boy, is it interesting in the way that I don’t pull it off,” says Schrader, a former critic. “To me, that’s a good review, but it would count as negative on Rotten Tomatoes.”

There’s also no accounting for enthusiasm — no attempt to distinguish between extremely and slightly positive (or negative) reviews. That means a film can score a perfect 100 with just passing grades. “In the old days, if an independent film got all three-star reviews, that was like the kiss of death,” says Publicist No. 2. “But with Rotten Tomatoes, if you get all three-star reviews, it’s fantastic.”

Another problem — and where the trickery often begins — is that Rotten Tomatoes scores are posted after a movie receives only a handful of reviews, sometimes as few as five, even if those reviews may be an unrepresentative sample. This is sort of like a cable-news network declaring an Election Night winner after a single county reports its results. But studios see it as a feature, since, with a little elbow grease, they can sometimes fool people into believing a movie is better than it is.

Here’s how. When a studio is prepping the release of a new title, it will screen the film for critics in advance. It’s a film publicist’s job to organize these screenings and invite the writers they think will respond most positively. Then that publicist will set the movie’s review embargo in part so that its initial Tomatometer score is as high as possible at the moment when it can have maximal benefits for word of mouth and early ticket sales.

Granted, that is not rocket science or even particularly new. But the strategy can be surprisingly effective on tentpole releases, for which studios can leverage the growing universe of fan-run websites, whose critics are generally more admiring of comic-book movies than those who write for mainstream outlets. (No offense to comicbookmovie.com.) For example, in February, the Tomatometer score for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania debuted at 79 percent based on its first batch of reviews. Days later, after more critics had weighed in, its rating sank into the 40s. But the gambit may have worked. Quantumania had the best opening weekend of any movie in the Ant-Man series, at $106 million. In its second weekend, with its rottenness more firmly established, the film’s grosses slid 69 percent, the steepest drop-off in Marvel history.

In studios’ defense, Rotten Tomatoes’ hastiness in computing its scores has made it practically necessary to cork one’s bat. In a strategic blunder in May, Disney held the first screening of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny at Cannes, the world’s snootiest film festival, from which the first 12 reviews begot an initial score of 33 percent. “What they should’ve done,” says Publicist No. 1, “was have simultaneous screenings in the States for critics who might’ve been more friendly.” A month and a half later, Dial of Destiny bombed at the box office even though friendly critics eventually lifted its rating to 69 percent. “They had a low Rotten Tomatoes score just sitting out there for six weeks before release, and that was deadly,” says a third publicist.

For smaller movies, the opposite is more common at film festivals, where critics tend to get swept up in the glamour (or maybe just the jet lag) and give kinder reviews than their peers back home. “It happens all the time,” says the indie-distribution exec. “A movie will come out of a festival with a 90-plus -Rotten Tomatoes score and then, boom, when it hits the marketplace, it goes down to 60 percent.” At the Venice Film Festival last September, critics raved about The Whale with Brendan Fraser and Netflix’s Marilyn Monroe biopic, Blonde, sending the two films’ Tomatometer scores to 84 and 86 percent, respectively. Later, back on dry land, sanity prevailed as other critics downgraded those ratings to 64 and 42.

Naturally, studios have learned to exploit this dynamic. Publicist No. 1 recalls working on a 2022 title that premiered to acclaim at a festival a few months before its release: “I wanted to screen it more widely, but the movie had a 100 and the studio didn’t want to damage that because they wanted to use the ‘100 percent’ graphic in their marketing. I said, ‘Why don’t we get a couple more reviews?,’ and they were like, ‘We just want the 100.’ ” The film won an Oscar.

All of this would be one thing if Rotten Tomatoes were merely an innocent relic from Web 1.0 being preyed upon by Hollywood sharks. But the site has come a long way from its founding, in 1998, by UC Berkeley grads, one of whom wanted a place to catalogue reviews of Jackie Chan movies. Rotten Tomatoes outlasted the dot-com bubble and was passed from one buyer to another, most recently in 2016. That year, Warner Bros. sold most of it to Fandango, which shares a parent company with Universal Pictures. If it sounds like a conflict of interest for a movie-review aggregator to be owned by two companies that make movies and another that sells tickets to them, it probably is.

Before the acquisition, Fandango had its own five-star rating scale on its app and website under which it was almost impossible for a movie to receive fewer than three stars. Since then, even the ostensibly well-intentioned changes it has made to Rotten Tomatoes have seemed to produce score-boosting side effects.

Rotten Tomatoes allows users to rate movies alongside critics, and three years after the Fandango deal, it changed the way these “audience scores” were calculated. Misogynist trolls had hijacked the platform, coordinating to tank women-led movies like Captain Marvel before they opened. As a fix, for users’ reviews to count, they would need to verify that they bought tickets — which they could do most easily by purchasing them via Fandango. Under the new rules, audience scores for tentpole movies have often gotten an early lift since most of the first-weekend crowds are diehards who buy tickets in advance. (In June, ads for The Flash bragged about an audience score of 95 percent — “as of 6/14/23,” which was the Wednesday that showtimes began in international markets such as Belgium and Finland but two days before the film’s U.S. release. Today, that score is 83.)

A bigger change came in 2018 when Rotten Tomatoes loosened the restrictions on whose reviews could be indexed. Once, the site had required its contributors to write for publications with substantial web traffic or print circulations. Now, more freelance and self-publishing critics have been allowed to join along with some who review movies via YouTube or podcasts.

The move has been widely characterized as a response to long-standing complaints over a lack of gender and racial diversity on the site and in criticism at large. A 2017 study found that 82 percent of Rotten Tomatoes’ reviews of the highest-grossing movies of that year had been written by white critics and 78 percent by men. With its more relaxed criteria, Rotten Tomatoes gave the “critical conversation a hard push in the direction of inclusion,” declared the New York Times.

Rotten Tomatoes says that more than 1,000 new critics have become “Tomatometer-approved” since 2018, bringing the site’s total to about 3,500. Of those new members, the company says, 50 percent are women and 24 percent are people of color. (Rotten Tomatoes also says that with individuals who identify as LGBTQ+ or say they have a disability factored in, 66 percent of the new critics come from underrepresented groups.) Every bit helps, of course, and I wouldn’t presume to argue with a company whose whole business is calculating percentages. But I might quibble that adding 500 women and another 500 men, three-quarters of them white, to an already overwhelmingly male and white group of around 2,500 does not seem like it would radically alter the imbalances that precipitated the original criticism.

But the change helped with another issue. In 2017, a string of bad movies including Baywatch (Tomatometer score: 17 percent) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (30 percent) flopped in theaters. Studios blamed Rotten Tomatoes. “The critic aggregation site increasingly is slowing down the potential business of popcorn movies,” reported Deadline. “Many of those in the industry severely question how Rotten Tomatoes computes its ratings, and the fact that these scores run on Fandango (which owns RT) is an even bigger problem.”

Could the allegedly more inclusive Rotten Tomatoes have simply expanded its ranks in hopes that the new critics would be nicer to the IP-driven event movies that Hollywood now mostly depends on? Intentional or not, this appears to be what happened. According to a study by Global News, in 2016, the average Tomatometer score for all wide releases was in the rotten low 50s. By 2021, that average had climbed to a fresh 60 percent.

The benefits have not been universally distributed. Some whom I spoke with complained that Rotten Tomatoes’ larger pool has been tougher on art-house movies. Publicist No. 2 worked on an indie director’s recent drama “that got rave reviews from all the highbrow critics, including a great Times review. And yet it was their lowest Rotten Tomatoes score ever. The movies that need high scores most are often more challenging and may not appeal to the whole gamut of Rotten Tomatoes reviewers.”

Maybe that indie director should’ve hired Bunker 15. Rotten Tomatoes’ new membership rules might have enabled the publicity company’s M.O. by providing a wider supply of critics receptive to its pitch, which seems to have become more explicit over time. (“I would like to know if you don’t post negative reviews on Rotten Tomatoes,” a Bunker 15 employee wrote to one critic in August 2022.)

Bunker 15’s main business appears to be small films released to VOD with little other promotion; it often helps them meet the five-review threshold required to receive a Tomatometer score. The company’s website mentions micro-indies such as Cold November, Tulsa, and Busman’s Holiday, which have only a smattering of reviews each. But Bunker 15 has worked on medium-size titles, too. According to critics who have transacted with the company, these include 2022’s Wildflower with Kiernan Shipka and Alexandra Daddario, 2023’s Burt Reynolds: The Last Interview, and Bruce Willis’s Gasoline Alley, whose 2022 release was overshadowed by news that Willis had been diagnosed with aphasia and may not have been aware he was still making movies. (I found negative reviews of several 2023 movies, including one of the above, on a Bunker 15–affiliated site, where, unlike their author’s other reviews, they were apparently hidden from Rotten Tomatoes.)

After I asked Rotten Tomatoes about Bunker 15, it delisted a number of the company’s movies from its website and sent a warning to writers who reviewed them. In a statement, Rotten Tomatoes wrote, “We take the integrity of our scores seriously and do not tolerate any attempts to manipulate them. We have a dedicated team who monitors our platforms regularly and thoroughly investigates and resolves any suspicious activity.”

And yet manipulation still happens. The question might be, Is it making a difference where it counts? Attempts to evince a relationship between movies’ Tomatometer scores and their financial success have yielded conflicting results. A 2017 study by the director of USC’s Data & Analytics Project concluded that “Rotten Tomatoes scores have never played a very big role in driving box office performance, either positively or negatively.” In 2020, an investigation by the Ringer found that Tomatometer scores do correlate with box-office returns, especially for comedies and horror films, but the authors admit that the pandemic may have scrambled moviegoing habits in ways that data may not fully account for yet.

What this suggests is that viewers may have developed their own formulas for choosing movies, in which Tomatometer scores are just one important variable. “If there was a new film by, I don’t know, Klaus Von Boringstein,” says Schrader, “and he had a three-hour drama about a housewife in the Middle Ages, do you think people would go see it because it had a 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes? No. But if it were a movie about a serial killer in the wilds of Alaska and it had a 50 percent? They might check that out.” Maybe they’d have better luck if they read the reviews.

[jo]

[jo]

x.com/WGAWest/status/1702481702357180723?s=20

Writers Guild of America West
@wgawest
WGA MEMBERS: The WGA and AMPTP are in the process of scheduling a time to get back in the room. #WGAstrong #1u #WGAstrike

Hope something positive is the result of this meeting!

[jo]

Will a breakthrough in the industrial conflict be reached? Will the strikes end fairly soon?

variety.com/2023/tv/news/wga-amptp-talks-still-going-friday-night-1235733166/

[jo]

Finally!!

Deadline Hollywood
@deadline
The Writers Guild has reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to end its strike after nearly five months. The parties finalized the framework of the deal Sunday when they were able to untangle their stalemate over AI and writing room staffing levels bit.ly/48ppy0X

U
Deadline

BREAKING NEWS
It's A Deal! WGA & AMPTP Reach Tentative Agreement To End Writers Strike
Read the full story




GUILDS
It’s A Deal! WGA & AMPTP Reach Tentative Agreement To End Writers Strike
By David Robb, Dominic Patten, Anthony D'Alessandro

September 24, 2023 7:16pm
Writers strike deal reached

UPDATED with WGA-AMPTP joint statement: The Writers Guild has reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to end its strike after nearly five months. The parties finalized the framework of the deal Sunday when they were able to untangle their stalemate over AI and writing room staffing levels.

“The WGA and AMPTP have reached a tentative agreement,” the WGA and the AMPTP said in a joint statement this evening.

l
Writers React To Deal News: “We Did It!!!”
Strike Talk Podcast with Billy Ray


Deadline’s Strike Talk Podcast Week 21: Reasons For Optimism Over Imminent WGA Deal & Renaissance Of Unions
“We have reached a tentative agreement on a new 2023 MBA, which is to say an agreement in principle on all deal points, subject to drafting final contract language,” the WGA told its members in a release, which came just after sunset and the start of the Yom Kippur holiday that many had seen deadline to wrap up deal after five days of long negotiations.

RELATED: SAG-AFTRA Congratulates WGA On Tentative Deal, Urges Studios To Return To Table With Actors



Details of the WGA’s tentative agreement haven’t been released, but will be revealed by the guild in advance of the membership ratification votes.

Next steps in process will see the Ellen Stutzman-led WGA negotiating committee vote on “whether to recommend the agreement and send it on to the WGAW Board and WGAE Council for approval” in votes tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, the guild said tonight. Another vote by the respective board and council could lift the strike”restraining order” and allow scribes to “return to work during the ratification vote” – a big deal for both the WGA and the studios. Pending those votes, the WGA told its members that it is still on strike, but that all picketing is hereby suspended.




Read the guild’s full statement to its members below.

Virtual discussions began mid-afternoon between negotiating committees for the WGA and the AMPTP. Along with the fine tuning on issues like AI and staffing one element of some continuing dispute today was around back-to-work schedules and protocols.


The studios also inquired if, once a tentative agreement is ratified by the scribes, if the writers would pick up their pens and hit their keyboards again very soon afterwards. The guild, from what we understand, had made the request that their members not return to work until SAG-AFTRA also had a new agreement with the AMPTP, reflective of the WGA’s feeling of solidarity between the two unions that has characterized their first mutual strike since 1960. It seems a pathway to split the difference was found.

With all that, it will take a few days for the strike to be officially over as the WGA West and WGA East proceed with their ratification process. During the WGA’s last strike in 2007-08, a tentative agreement was reached on the 96th day and it wasn’t over until the 100th.



The first shows to shut down when the current WGA strike began on May 2 – late-night comedy shows and daytime talk shows – will be able to return to air almost immediately because SAG-AFTRA’s ongoing strike doesn’t include them as struck productions. Films and scripted TV shows that didn’t sign Interim Agreements with SAG-AFTRA will remain dark until that strike is settled as well.


All attention will now turn to ratifying the WGA deal and getting SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP back to the bargaining table to work out a deal to end the actors’ strike, which has now been going on for 73 days.

Hollywood and the entertainment industry can breathe just a little easier, but economists estimated that the dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes have cost California’s economy some $5 billion.

Here’s the WGA’s message to members tonight:

DEAR MEMBERS,

We have reached a tentative agreement on a new 2023 MBA, which is to say an agreement in principle on all deal points, subject to drafting final contract language.

What we have won in this contract – most particularly, everything we have gained since May 2nd – is due to the willingness of this membership to exercise its power, to demonstrate its solidarity, to walk side-by-side, to endure the pain and uncertainty of the past 146 days. It is the leverage generated by your strike, in concert with the extraordinary support of our union siblings, that finally brought the companies back to the table to make a deal.

We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional – with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership.

What remains now is for our staff to make sure everything we have agreed to is codified in final contract language. And though we are eager to share the details of what has been achieved with you, we cannot do that until the last “i” is dotted. To do so would complicate our ability to finish the job. So, as you have been patient with us before, we ask you to be patient again – one last time.

Once the Memorandum of Agreement with the AMPTP is complete, the Negotiating Committee will vote on whether to recommend the agreement and send it on to the WGAW Board and WGAE Council for approval. The Board and Council will then vote on whether to authorize a contract ratification vote by the membership.

If that authorization is approved, the Board and Council would also vote on whether to lift the restraining order and end the strike at a certain date and time (to be determined) pending ratification. This would allow writers to return to work during the ratification vote, but would not affect the membership’s right to make a final determination on contract approval.

Immediately after those leadership votes, which are tentatively scheduled for Tuesday if the language is settled, we will provide a comprehensive summary of the deal points and the Memorandum of Agreement. We will also convene meetings where members will have the opportunity to learn more about and assess the deal before voting on ratification.

To be clear, no one is to return to work until specifically authorized to by the Guild. We are still on strike until then. But we are, as of today, suspending WGA picketing. Instead, if you are able, we encourage you to join the SAG-AFTRA picket lines this week.

Finally, we appreciated your patience as you waited for news from us — and had to fend off rumors — during the last few days of the negotiation. Please wait for further information from the Guild. We will have more to share with you in the coming days, as we finalize the contract language and go through our unions’ processes.

As always, thank you for your support. You will hear from us again very soon.

[jo]

Oct 3, 2023 0:27:06 GMT -5 jo said:

From Variety --

HOME
FILM
NEWS
Oct 2, 2023 5:25pm PT
SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP to Meet Again Wednesday After Full Day of Talks

By Matt Donnelly

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Los Angeles, CA - July 26: Members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA), joined by members of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), come together to picket in front of Paramount Studios, in Los Angeles, CA, Wednesday, July 26, 2023. Entertainment's largest guilds have come together, during disputed contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag

Actors union SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP concluded a full day of negotiations on Monday, the first time dealmakers have been in a room together since the union declared a strike on July 14.

While little details were shared about the talks, both sides plan to meet again this week at the SAG-AFTRA’s headquarters in the Miracle Mile neighborhood of Los Angeles.

“SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP met for a full day bargaining session and have concluded. Negotiations will resume Wednesday, Oct. 4,” a spokesperson for the guild said.

Ahead of the meeting, which was attended by top Hollywood CEOs including Bob Iger, Donna Langley, David Zaslav and Ted Sarandos — the union asked its members to continue pickets across town.


“Today, we go back to the bargaining table to fight for the contract you deserve. As we negotiate, we ask that you not let up. Keep turning out in full force on our picket lines and at solidarity events around the country. Let the AMPTP hear your voices loud and clear. It makes a difference,” the union wrote on its social media channels.

As Variety reported on Sunday, last week’s resolution to the painful (and concurrent) Writers Guild of America strike raised spirits that a deal with the actors will follow soon after. SAG-AFTRA’s priorities include improved payment terms for vulnerable members like extras, background actors and day players. The union will also seek to regulate generative artificial intelligence and the reuse of actor likenesses using cutting-edge rendering technologies, as well as shop for a boost in streaming residuals.

[jo]

From VARIETY --

NEWS
Oct 18, 2023 2:10pm PT
George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson, Tyler Perry and Other Restless A-List Actors Pressure SAG-AFTRA to Get a Deal

By Gene Maddaus

A group of A-list actors is adding pressure on SAG-AFTRA leadership to find a way to resolve the actors strike, which has now lasted 97 days.

George Clooney, Tyler Perry, Scarlett Johansson, and others held a Zoom meeting on Tuesday afternoon with Fran Drescher, the president of SAG-AFTRA, and Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the union’s executive director.

Though the tone has been described as “supportive,” the actors did not call the meeting merely to express support. According to several sources, the A-listers represent significant discontent within the guild that talks have broken down, and are looking for a path to restart negotiations and end the strike.



Perry employs hundreds of people at his studio in Atlanta, and has been concerned for weeks that he cannot resume production.

The group, which also includes Emma Stone and Ben Affleck, was said by one source to have given a “presentation” to Drescher and Crabtree-Ireland. The leaders listened and were expected to meet with the SAG-AFTRA Negotiating Committee on Wednesday afternoon before delivering a response.

Representatives for the actors either did not respond to requests for comment or declined to comment on the substance of the meeting. SAG-AFTRA also did not address what was said in the meeting.

“We meet with members of all profiles every day and we won’t be commenting on those private conversations,” the union said in a statement.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers suspended talks on Oct. 11, after declaring that the two sides are too far apart and that continued negotiations at that point would not be productive.

The key obstacle in negotiations is SAG-AFTRA’s demand for a new form of streaming residual, which would come on top the residuals that actors already earn on streaming shows.

SAG-AFTRA wants $500 million a year, which would come in the form of a per-subscriber fee assessed on each of the streaming platforms. That money would be distributed to actors by a jointly administered trust, presumably based on viewership data for each streaming show.

Drescher has made it clear throughout negotiations that the issue is her top priority, but the studio CEOs have rejected it as economically “untenable.”

The A-list group was said to be interested in coming up with a way to resolve that issue that would be acceptable to all sides.

Clooney in particular is no stranger to Screen Actors Guild politics. In December 2008, he was among a large group of A-listers who urged SAG members to vote against a strike authorization, citing the weak economy as a factor making it an inopportune time to shut down the industry. The union, which had yet to merge with AFTRA, ultimately withdrew the strike authorization vote.

The actors union has been far more united this cycle, though there have been occasional signs of internal tensions.

Drescher has vowed from the beginning of negotiations to reach a “seminal” deal for actors. In late June, she and Crabtree-Ireland recorded a video in which she expressed optimism about the talks and said they were “extremely productive.”

That prompted an open letter from yet another group of A-listers, including Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lawrence, urging leadership to take a hard line in negotiations, and saying that “members may be ready to make sacrifices that leadership is not.”

After extending the talks, SAG-AFTRA went on strike on July 14. The strike has now surpassed the length of the 1980 strike, which lasted 95 days.

[jo]

From Deadline --

BREAKING NEWS
SAG-AFTRA And Studios To Return To Talks On Tuesday
Read the full story


Happy 100! SAG-AFTRA And Studios To Return To Talks On Tuesday
By Dominic Patten, Anthony D'Alessandro

October 21, 2023 2:03pm


(Updated with SAG-AFTRA tweet) After over a week of silence, the actors union and the AMPTP are now set to return to negotiations on Tuesday, October 24.

“SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP will meet for bargaining on Tuesday, October 24 at SAG-AFTRA Plaza. Several executives from AMPTP member companies will be in attendance,” read a statement today from SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP.

That means, similar to the final days of the WGA talks and this previous round of SAG-AFTRA talks, that the CEO gang of four will be in the room next week. Disney’s Bob Iger, Warner Bros Discovery’s David Zaslav, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos and NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley, have been participating in efforts to close an agreement with the actors union for the past several weeks.

In fact, it was the studio bosses who asked the Guild for the talks to restart, we hear — an offer that was accepted in short order. That intel was confirmed in a post the Guild put up on social media not long after the second round new talks were announced.


As they had with the WGA in August, the studios left the SAG-AFTRA talks and announced them “suspended” on October 11. SAG-AFTRA Chief Negotiator and National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland told Deadline Thursday that he remained “optimistic” that both sides would sit across the table soon.

Said Crabtree-Ireland, “I did not expect [negotiations] would have to go so long…The amount of time spent without negotiating has been completely unconscionable. The studios and streamers ought to be back at the table with us now. They should have been there the first 80 days but they weren’t. I am very eager to see that happen and I believe it will happen soon. I think there’s a lot of pressure happening outside of formal channels to get people back to the table, so I’m optimistic that that will happen sometime soon. But I know that we’re just going to stand strong and get a fair deal.”

While not unusual for labor talks to start and stall and start again, as we saw with the WGA and the studios recently, it seems that this specific resumption of deliberations is in no small part due to a PR campaign of shame against the studios by SAG-AFTRA, sources on both sides tell us.

Talks broke apart on Oct. 11 with SAG-AFTRA proposing a 75 cents per subscriber annual charge in a revenue share plan with the studios. The next day at a Bloomberg conference, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos called such a charge a “levy on subscribers on top of [other] areas” as well as a “bridge too far”. Crabtree-Ireland slammed Sarandos’ statement as “preposterous” in an interview with Deadline last Saturday. The studios balked at the guild’s ask saying in a public statement that it was an “untenable economic burden” which would cost them more than $2.4 billion over the course of a new three-year contract or more than $800 million per year. SAG-AFTRA responded by saying that the studios “intentionally misrepresented to the press the cost of the above proposal – overstating it by 60%.”


Fran Drescher On The Studios Refusing To Negotiate And The SAG-AFTRA Strike Hitting 100 Days – Guest Column
On Tuesday, Hollywood’s biggest stars gathered on a Zoom call with SAG-AFTRA leaders, pledging to commit $150 million over three years to remove a cap on union dues to bring more coin to guild coffers, and suggesting a streamer residual structure that would put actors on the bottom of the call sheet before them. The hope was that getting money faster would help more struggling actors qualify for benefits.




Deadline told you first that the roster of thespians included George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson, Kerry Washington, Tyler Perry, Bradley Cooper, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Aniston, Robert De Niro, Ben Affleck, Laura Dern, Emma Stone, Reese Witherspoon, Ryan Reynolds, and Ariana DeBose.

However, union leader Fran Drescher later said that such a move would be incompatible with the contract that SAG-AFTRA was attempting to negotiate. The Clooney offer “does not impact the contract that we’re striking over whatsoever,” said Drescher on Instagram Thursday night on why the offer couldn’t work.

“I also want to thank George Clooney for organizing the suggestion that… take the caps off of the dues so that the highest paid members can contribute more…We are a federally regulated labor union and the only contributions that can go into our pension and health funds must be from the employer. So what we are fighting for in terms of benefits has to remain in this contract.”

The SAG-AFTRA President in an exclusive column with Deadline on the 100th day of the strike wrote, “SAG-AFTRA members have been systematically squeezed out of their ability to make a living due to a streaming model that reduces the number of episodes in a season by two-thirds and the number of seasons by two-thirds, while completely cutting off the syndication tail.”

She added, “This dramatic compression of work opportunities coupled with inadequate compensation has had a devastating effect on the working actors and journeyman actors who bring movies and television shows to life. It has compromised their ability to pay their rent, put food on the table and clothes on their children’s backs.”

“Over the past decade, streaming has cannibalized much of the entertainment industry’s more traditional forms of exhibition and it is clearly here to stay. It’s a fact: streaming is generating tens of billions of dollars in revenue for these companies, but that economic success is not trickling down to actors,” she expounded.

Together with the WGA strike, which ended on Sept. 27, the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike has cost the California economy $5 billion. Additionally, per Labor statistics, 45K jobs have been lost in the entertainment industry with the fall box office off near $400M from the pre-pandemic 2019 frame (the post Labor Day through mid October).

While writers rooms have returned, the start of the new TV season hangs in limbo. A January 2024 telecast was hoped for by studios as they reached a deal with scribes, pinning their hopes that the actors would immediately find their way to a contract as well. That has not happened as SAG-AFTRA has held firm to getting better terms on streaming residuals/revenue share, in addition to better rights for actors in regards to their use by AI.



Also bound to be collateral damage as part of the strike is the 2024 theatrical release calendar and potentially exhibition itself as more big movies will either move off the schedule or become delayed. Cinemas, with the help of the U.S. government, were able to scrape by after being shuttered for close to a year due to Covid. The box office boomed back, but not to pre-pandemic $11 billion domestic levels. With big studio Hollywood films shut down worldwide, that will indeed force the majors to delay movies, leaving gaps on the release calendar, and putting the debt-laden exhibition pipeline in dire straits. Deadline told you first that Marvel Studios’ Deadpool 3, which is only half completed, won’t meet its May 3 start-of-summer release date even if the strike wraps in the near future.

Deadline’s Rosy Cordero contributed to this article.

[jo]

Oct 28, 2023 0:02:45 GMT -5 jo said:

Another evaluation of the ongoing talks --
from Deadline.com

BREAKING NEWS
SAG-AFTRA & Studio CEOs Plan Talks Into Weekend In Hopes Of Reaching Deal

HOME
BUSINESS
BREAKING NEWS
SAG-AFTRA & Studio CEOs Plan Talks Into Weekend In Hopes Of Reaching Deal
By Dominic Patten, Anthony D'Alessandro

October 27, 2023 4:38pm


EXCLUSIVE: SAG-AFTRA and the studios don’t have a deal, but they are planning on talking more.

Any agreement between SAG-AFTRA and the studios to end the 106-day strike by the 160,000-strong guild looks almost certain to not be coming tonight, though the two sides are still in deliberations right now (Update – 5:51 p.m: the talks are now over for the day). However, it’s our understanding that the guild and the AMPTP have agreed that talks between the parties will go into the weekend — Saturday and Sunday, if necessary.


SAG-AFTRA’s Duncan Crabtree-Ireland Is “Cautiously Optimistic” As Two Sides Return To Negotiating Table
Sarah Paulson on picket line
Thousands Of Stars Including Sarah Paulson, Chelsea Handler, Jon Hamm, Daveed Diggs, Christian Slater & Sandra Oh Tell SAG-AFTRA Leadership: “We Would Rather Stay On Strike Than Take A Bad Deal”
Whether those talks will continue at SAG-AFTRA’s Wilshire offices or virtual is still TBD, we hear.

We also hear that the reaction today by AMPTP president Carol Lombardini and the major studio Gang of Four — Disney’s Bob Iger, Netflix‘s Ted Sarandos, Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav and NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley– to the guild’s latest proposals wasn’t all green lights and parking spaces. “Underwhelmed,” was how one source close to the virtual session described it.

Yet, with all parties aware of the stakes at this juncture, “the AMPTP recognizes that there’s some terms there to continue to build on and talk through,” a studio insider states. The Gang of Four were less involved today than this week’s previous two sessions, with Lombardini taking the lead Friday


After shifting away in the last set of renewed negotiations from the revenue sharing demand that had been DOA with the AMPTP for months, SAG-AFTRA on October 11 proposed an approximately 57¢ per subscriber annual charge for the streamers. The notion proved the breaking point for the studios, who who walked out suddenly and suspended talks.

Speaking the next day, Sarandos deemed the proposal “a bridge too far” and “a levy on subscribers.” Noting the percentage proposal was not locked in and open to negotiations. guild president Fran Drescher and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland threw shade on the co-CEO’s reaction, and he and his C-Suite colleagues taking their ball and going home.

After Iger contacted Crabtree-Ireland on October 21 to re-start talks on October 24, the studios this week put on the table an offer of increased bonuses based on the success of streaming shows and movies and a rise in minimum rates. Using their now ratified deal with the Writers Guild as a roadmap of sorts, the studios had put forth a 7% increase in minimums. In their self-described “comprehensive counter,” offered Friday, SAG-AFTRA shifted its ask from an 11% rise to 9%, sources on both sides tell us.



In response to what has been a largely quiet day as both sides stay huddled, one key source close to talks remarked, “If I don’t hear anything, that’s a good thing, because it means they’re talking.”

Yesterday the vibe in the five-hour face-to-face meeting by those on the studio side echoed what SAG-AFTRA Crabtree-Ireland told Deadline on the pickets, one of “cautious optimism” for a new deal. At the same time, sources on both sides warned about reading too much into that, as major sticking points, like success-based compensation and, to a lesser degree, AI, remained.

Later Thursday night, once talks between the studios bosses and the guild had concluded for the day, an open letter was released with signatures from a slew of prolific actors including Julia Louis Dreyfus, Jon Hamm, Sarah Paulson, Chelsea Handler, Christian Slater, Sandra Oh, Daveed Diggs, Pedro Pascal, Carrie Anne Moss, Leslie Odom, Jr., Lizzy Caplan among several others who told the SAG-AFTRA Negotiating Committee that “We would rather stay on strike than take a bad deal.”

The move, which was very similar to the June letter by a slew of stars that included Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, and Amy Schumer who told SAG brass that they were ready to strike, underscored the slew of members who aren’t apt to make peace with the AMPTP just yet. Last week, a very different zoom call took place with George Clooney, Emma Stone, Jennifer Aniston, Tyler Perry, Scarlett Johansson and more whereby the A-list actors, many of whom are also established producers, were proposing to pay more into union coffers to remove union dues caps. SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher, in an Instagram video on the evening of October 19, respectfully pointed out such a sincere gesture wouldn’t be legal and “does not impact the contract that we’re striking over whatsoever.”



Looking at bleak Q4 results and repeats, many studio sources are anxious that if a deal can’t be reached in the coming weeks then the blow to an entertainment industry that has seen a complete global production stoppage of Hollywood TV and feature films will make at least the first half of 2024 a complete write-off. As many members of the guilds, other unions and those who are vendors to Hollywood have gone six months with no significant work, that industry schedule wipe-out would come in addition to a $6.5 billion drop the California economy has suffered since May of this year, which includes the impact from the now settled writers strike, and the loss of 45,000 entertainment industry jobs

Just today, Disney delayed two big movies on the 2024 theatrical release calendar to 2025: Pixar’s Elio and the live-action version of Snow White starring Gal Gadot and Rachel Zegler. Earlier this week, Paramount pushed Mission: Impossible 8 from next year to 2025. Altogether that’s already an estimated $1.5 billion that will be missing from the global box office next year, not just a minus for studios by movie theaters still recovering from the pandemic.

However, throughout the course of changing mediums in Hollywood history from global TV syndication to the video age, actors have had to always fight for residuals from novel technology changes. To understand how many haven’t been seeing the benefits of streaming, one writer connected to Lucasfilm’s Andor series told Deadline before the WGA strike that they’d make more in their career from the ABC broadcast of a handful of episodes versus the show’s life on Disney+.

Or as recently overwhelmingly re-elected Drescher asked in a 100-day actors strike exclusive column on Deadline: “So, where is the money?”

“Clearly, it’s not in the old residual payment structure designed for linear TV and it’s not in the current residuals compensation for streaming. It is in the pockets of the CEOs and on the balance sheets of the companies,” she said, partially answering her own question.

“Sadly, I’m not at all surprised that our employers, bedazzled by the vast sums of investor money being thrown at their businesses, didn’t consider the performer’s ability to make a living in SVOD while they were negotiating their own rich deals,” the SAG-AFTRA boss added.

And that’s why everybody’s working this weekend, to paraphrase Loverboy’s big hit from the 1980s.