SAG-AFTRA’s Duncan Crabtree-Ireland Clarifies Waiver Process & Why Apple TV+’s ‘Tehran’ Qualified — Comic-Con

Anthony D'Alessandro, Dominic Patten and Katie Campione
·2 min read

EXCLUSIVE: Following SAG-AFTRA’s clearance of AppleTV+’s Israeli spy series Tehran and New Line’s horror movie Watchers –prolific projects from AMPTP studios that the guild remains in talks with– in their interim agreement process, some producers and filmmakers in town have been miffed.

How do some films get the go-ahead to shoot with SAG-AFTRA talent and others do not? Even when it seems like they’re AMPTP-backed projects?

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It’s a complicated answer, but SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland told Deadline today at San Diego Comic-Con, “It goes to reflect the complexity and the business relationships and structures in this industry.”

Expounding on the process for landing a waiver, the SAG-AFTRA talks boss said, “the terms of the interim agreement are the terms of our last counter-offer to the AMPTP on all the issues in this negotiation.”

Things considered per each production are: “who’s eligible for them, fundamentally, are there AMPTP fingerprints on the project or not? If there aren’t and we verify that through our staff, who review these things, then they’ll be eligible for an interim agreement.”

“If there are AMPTP connections to the project, then they won’t be. That’s the big picture answer. Everyone needs to be investigated and evaluated individually because obviously the question of ‘Are there AMPTP fingerprints or connections to the project?’ is a very specific question. That means it takes a few days to a week depending on volume, maybe a little more for us to evaluate whether a project can receive an interim agreement.”

“In the case of Tehran, this is project that was produced by an Israeli-based company, that’s currently being shot in Greece,” he explained.

“There’s multiple national laws that apply to exactly how we address striking that production,” he said, “That’s one of the things we consider in the process of determining whether we grant an interim agreement.”

“So, there might be productions that have distribution through AMPTP companies, that nonetheless are eligible for interim agreements,” he continued on the loophole situation, “I don’t think you’ll see that be true a lot, but that might be the case in some cases.”

Crabtree-Ireland was at San Diego Comic-Con with voiceover actors this afternoon to chat about how they’re being impacted by AI.

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