if i see a single one of you pissed that your faves canceled an event or a con appearance because they're striking for fair wages then imma come for you in your sleep 🔪🔪🔪
(direct that fury where it belongs: AMPTP and the execs)
Q: Why aren’t the studios budging?
A: They seem to believe they’ve done enough already.
The AMPTP’s statement about the SAG-AFTRA strike on Thursday claims the organization offered “historic pay and residual increases, substantially higher caps on pension and health contributions, audition protections, shortened series option periods, and a groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors’ digital likenesses for SAG-AFTRA members.” (That “groundbreaking” AI proposal would be the aforementioned suggestion that background actors sell off their likenesses forever.)
And as Disney CEO Bob Iger recently put it in an interview that immediately got him scorched on Twitter, Hollywood “is and has been a great business for all of these people, and it will continue to be, even through disruptive times. But being realistic is imperative here.”
Q: How much does that guy make again?
A: I’m so glad you asked! He just signed a contract extension that brings his annual take-home to $31 million, assuming he gets all his bonuses.
I’m sorry, what?
To be honest, his salary is kind of embarrassingly low compared to some of the other guys. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav made $498,915,318 in the past five years, according to the Los Angeles Times; poor Iger only got to $195,092,460.
Ted Sarandos, meanwhile, reportedly took home $192,171,581 from Netflix in the past half-decade, and Comcast CEO Brian Roberts got $170,158,088.
Everything You Need to Know About the SAG Actors Strike
Clearly, major studios are already deploying AI to copy my likeness to make otherwise ho-hum scenes pop off the screen. Can you believe they paid me not a dime for this? (That, or this background actor went in to a plastic surgeon and said, “I don’t care what it costs… Make me look like Misha Collins.”)
Now that SAG-AFTRA is officially joining the WGA on the picket lines, many of your favorite shows and films you're looking forward to that were already facing major delays will now face even longer delays.
Don't blame the writers or the actors. Blame the studios for refusing to compensate them fairly. I've spoken a bit about what studios are trying to do to the profession of screenwriting in my last post about the WGA strike, but I'll be focusing on acting in this one.
It's easy to see the headlines about actors striking and go "Why are the actors striking? What the hell are they complaining about? They're all millionaires. They don't need more money!". And if SAG-AFTRA was an exclusive cool kid's club with only A-Listers amongst their ranks, maybe there's a point there. But it's not and there isn't.
There are countless working actors in SAG-AFTRA either making an honest living or living paycheck to paycheck like so many in the country are right now. Over the past few years, I've gotten to know and work with some incredibly talented actors, and even dabble in some acting myself. It's not easy work and they deserve to be fully compensated for it, whether their famous or not. And the working actors just trying to make a living like everyone else deserves it the most.
While writers are the backbone of film and television, creating worlds and characters through treatments and scripts, actors help tell those stories by bringing those characters to life through their performances. With no script or actors, you got nothing.
While I'm not a member of either guild, as an aspiring writer who does some acting every now and then, I stand with both 100%. Writers and Actors deserve to be properly compensated for their work.
Please show your support for the WGA and SAG-AFTRA on strike!
Solidarity forever.
Read more about the SAG-AFTRA strike here: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/sag-aftra-strike-what-know-actors-writers-wga-rcna94075
"I'm here today in solidarity with my fellow Irish actors, who are supporting the strike that is happening in America in solidarity with the sagaftra strikes."