Studios Declare SAG-AFTRA Talks “Suspended”, Slam Guild For Rejecting Terms Offered To WGA & DGA

Dominic Patten
·8 min read
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After less than two weeks, the latest negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and the studios and streamers have broken down and been “suspended,” according to the AMPTP on Wednesday.

“After meaningful conversations, it is clear that the gap between the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA is too great, and conversations are no longer moving us in a productive direction,” the Carol Lombardini-led group said in a statement late tonight after what was described to Deadline by one source as “much rockier than usual” talks.

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Read the full AMPTP statement below.

The collapse of talks for at least the time being was preceded by a proposal earlier in the day from the actors guild that the AMPTP decided it couldn’t swallow.

As Deadline reported today and over the past week of deliberations between the parties, the main stumbling block to a deal seems to be SAG-AFTRA’s desire for revenue sharing from successful streaming shows. Terming the profit split demand, which is estimated to make up around 2% of potential profits, an “untenable economic burden,” the studio CEO-led negotiating team has valued the proposal costing them more than $2.4 billion over the course of a new three-year contract, or “more than $800 million per year.”

RELATED: NBCU’s Donna Langley On Actors Strike & Protecting The “Moviegoing Cadence”

Essentially a non-starter with the studios from the moment SAG-AFTRA first put revenue sharing on the table back in the early summer, the proposal has proven intractable for the parties and one of the initiators of the guild going out on strike beginning July 14. Today marked the strike’s 91st day.

“We hope that SAG-AFTRA will reconsider and return to productive negotiations soon,” the AMPTP added tonight.

As it has in previous negotiation-cratering instances with the WGA earlier this year, the AMPTP tonight listed off areas such as wages, AI protections, “percentage increase in minimums areas” and more where it considered itself to have offered the actors hefty increases. “On common issues, such as general wage increases, High-Budget SVOD residuals, and viewership bonuses, the AMPTP offered the same terms that were ratified by the DGA and WGA. Yet SAG-AFTRA rejected these.” the AMPTP said.

While SAG-AFTRA have said nothing publicly (UPDATED: read the guild’s response here), the AMPTP’s statement Wednesday night came hours after the fifth meeting between the sides in the restarted talks at the union’s Miracle Mile headquarters had ended for the day.

The sharp statement also came not long after NBCUniversal chair Donna Langley, who has been one of the CEO Gang of Four directly involved in bargaining with the actors guild, had finished her long-scheduled appearance at the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Hollywood tonight and left the event. Parsing her words as word leaked out of how bad negotiations had gone Wednesday, Langley told the industry and media crowd “the best way I can say it is we’ve been spending time with the actors and we want to spend as much time as it takes to reach a resolution and get back to work.”

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos is supposed to be at the Bloomberg conference mid-morning Thursday.

Like they did for the final days of the eventually successful rounds of talks with the Writers Guild, Langley and Sarandos have been joined in bargaining with SAG-AFTRA since October 2 by Warner Bros Discovery’s David Zaslav and Disney’s Bob Iger. With Lombardini by their side, the CEO Gang of Four has been countered across the table by SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher, chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland and other guild leaders.

During the last 10 days, as talks between SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP have gone on with periodic breaks, the WGA saw its members back at work and almost unanimously ratifying its agreement struck with the studio bosses on September 24. The optimism and momentum out of that successful negotiation seemed to lift the SAG-AFTRA talks, with many anticipating a swift and equally successful conclusion whether that was realistic or not.

Tonight’s suspension of negotiations with the 160,000-strong actors guild is similar in scope and tactics to when barely resumed talks with the scribes fell apart in mid-August and the AMPTP released its most recent offer in a move to turn WGA members against guild leadership.

Landing another blow to the $5 billion hit the greater L.A. County economy has taken since May over the strikes, the suspension of talks tonight comes on the same day a heavily scorned letter from the Directors Guild of America went out to its members.

The unsigned “damage control” DGA correspondence, as one director referred to it, hailed the “extraordinary gains” of the agreement the DGA made with studios in June. Although it delivered a strong ratification mandate among DGA members at the time, the pact was also criticized by a notable minority of members for possibly folding to the AMPTP too quickly for too little. The DGA deal was also seen at the time in studio circles as a rebuke of the more sharp-elbowed WGA and almost an assurance of preventing a SAG-AFTRA strike. When the actors finally did strike, it seemed to take the pattern bargaining-beholden AMPTP by surprise.

Faced with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA out on their first joint strike since 1960 when Ronald Reagan ran the actors union, the AMPTP eventually saw the CEOs take a much more hands-on approach in attempting to transform the Hollywood paradigm from “20th century labor relations to 21st talent relations,” as one exec termed it.

Now that may have proven a bridge too far.

Buoyed by the writers deal getting done and WGA members back at work, many agents and execs saw it as only a matter of time before a SAG-AFTRA deal was completed and production would kick back into gear. That hope, plus any possibility of new shows making it air by mid-January and a full 2024 summer movie season, now seem less and less likely.

SAG-AFTRA will resume picketing Thursday in front of studios and streamers’ lots and offices in L.A. and NYC.

Here’s the full AMPTP statement:

Negotiations between the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA have been suspended after SAG-AFTRA presented its most recent proposal on October 11. After meaningful conversations, it is clear that the gap between the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA is too great, and conversations are no longer moving us in a productive direction.

SAG-AFTRA’s current offer included what it characterized as a viewership bonus that, by itself, would cost more than $800 million per year – which would create an untenable economic burden. SAG-AFTRA presented few, if any, moves on the numerous remaining open items.

Member company executives and AMPTP representatives met with SAG-AFTRA for five days over the past eight workdays. During that time period, AMPTP extended offers including:

• A first-of-its-kind success-based residual for High-Budget SVOD productions.
The highest percentage increase in minimums in 35 years, which would generate an additional $717 million in wages and $177 million in contributions to the Pension and Health Plans during the contract term.

• A 58% increase in salaries for major role (guest star) performers wages on High Budget SVOD Programs.

• A 76% increase in High Budget SVOD foreign residuals for the four largest streaming services.
Substantial increases in pension and health contribution caps, ranging from 22-33%, which will make it easier for performers to qualify for additional periods of health coverage and earn years of service toward a pension.

• Meeting nearly all of the Union’s demands on casting, including guardrails around self-tapes, options for virtual and in-person auditions, and accommodations to performers with disabilities.

• Compensation adjustments of 25% for singers who dance and dancers who sing on camera in the same session, whether in rehearsal or photography, representing a 30% increase over current wages.

• Wage increases for stunt coordinators of 10% in the first year and outsized increases in years two and three, and giving television stunt coordinators fixed residuals for the first time ever.

• Substantial improvements in relocation allowance – a 200% increase if the performer is on an overnight location for 6 months. The relocation allowance would now be payable for every season in which the performer is on an overnight location (versus a current limit of two to four seasons).

• Substantial increases in Schedule F money breaks of between 11% and 41%. The 41% increase applies to one-hour television programs, which covers the largest number of productions done under the Agreement.

• A 25% increase in span money breaks.

•Covering performance capture work under the Agreement, which the Union has sought for 20 years. 

On AI protections:

• Advance consent from the performer and background actor to create and use Digital Replicas;
No Digital Replica of the performer can be used without the performer’s written consent and description of the intended use in the film;

• Prohibition of later use of that Replica, unless performer specifically consents to that new use and is paid for it; and,

• A “Digital Alteration” that would change the nature of an actor’s performance in a role is not permitted without informing the performer of the intended alteration and securing the performer’s consent.

On common issues, such as general wage increases, High-Budget SVOD residuals, and viewership bonuses, the AMPTP offered the same terms that were ratified by the DGA and WGA. Yet SAG-AFTRA rejected these.

We hope that SAG-AFTRA will reconsider and return to productive negotiations soon.

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