Actors Gina Gershon, Jessica Lange, Zachary Quinto and Rebecca Damon join the picket in New York, October 30 Photo: Getty
Hollywood, the world's largest entertainment industry, effectively shut down in May and remained closed for nearly six months thanks to the combined Tinseltown writers' and actors' strikes. Films were delayed, actors were banned from promoting finished films, and many people left the industry. The effects were global in scale and scope. This week, Warner Bros. Discovery said it lost half a billion dollars in the dispute, California lost about 45,000 jobs, and the strikes reduced U.S. GDP by at least $6 billion.
The money Los Angeles expected to pay for films and TV shows in 2023 was estimated at $240bn (£190bn) – roughly the same turnover as Google, almost double Ford's and four times Boeing's. With London being the third largest production center in the world, studios across the country and production and production crews were generally ranked as the best in the world in industry polls, much of this was funneled our way. Hollywood's domestic investment in film and luxury television was £5.37 billion in 2022, according to the BFI. It's unclear exactly how much of that money we've lost this year, but it will be billions.
The strikes came as writers and actors reacted to the way Hollywood was shifting and changing: streamers had deals that paid talent less and offered less work, while the threat of AI in terms of writing scripts and the creation of synthetic actors have threatened the livelihoods of non-star talent and become increasingly precarious. Now the strikes are over, champagne corks are popping everywhere… but things are better now?
Let's get back to work, Anya Taylor-Joy! pic.twitter.com/nkZKjUXUuC
— Anya Taylor-Joy News | Fan site (@anyajoynews) November 9, 2023
Not really. Matt Belloni, writing for the respected industry newsletter Puck, greeted the strike's end on a somber note: “What should be a time of relief and celebration in Hollywood is more like what soldiers endure in countless war films – the horrors of battle providing the way for such same grim reality of the new world for which they fought.” Hollywood is still in financial and technological turmoil, with trust between staff and studios at an all-time low and the crew's union contract expiring next year, leading to a new round of negotiations over a possible studio closure. Thus, aftershocks will be large-scale and long-lasting. Hollywood will never be the same again—and that will affect you, too. But how?
What did the actors actually get?
A lot of. Full details will be published after the National Trade Union Council reviews the preliminary agreement. and would then have to be ratified by rank-and-file members, but in a memo to members, the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee estimated the three-year deal to be worth more than “one billion dollars” – pennies compared to what was lost – including a “higher 'template' wage increase and “unprecedented consent and compensation provisions that will protect participants from the threat of AI.”
This essentially gives actors copyright over their bodies and voices. Studios can use them with permission and for a fee, but only for use in projects that already have actors. Bad news for the stunt doubles and extras playing stormtroopers, who will find that they can be easily replaced or repeated. Good news for big-name stars who, under the studio's previous proposals, had little control over the use of their likeness in new films long after their deaths (a la Peter Cushing in Star Wars: Rogue One).
There is protection against using generative AI to create synthetic characters. If the AI uses actors, the actor must now consent and be paid. There's also a “streaming bonus” that will prove confusing. This means that actors will receive bonuses for starring in popular shows, but since streamers don't release viewership data, who will measure viewership numbers? In the long run, it will be the actors who benefit from this, not the superstars. “This strike was against people trying to make a middle-class living,” SAG chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland told Deadline.
Will we still get our summer blockbusters?
Maybe. There are no December blockbusters, Disney evacuated the Star Wars, Avengers and Avatar films from 2024, and Mission: Impossible 8 and Dirty Dancing were postponed to 2025 due to the strike. (Sequels to Twister, Pixar's Inside Out and Alien are almost finished.) But if studios can act quickly, they might be able to push the films forward again. Many of them have already been filmed, and the delay was due to actors being unavailable for premieres, so summer 2024 is a moving holiday as studios rush to rearrange their schedules over the next few weeks.
Can production start right now?
Slowly. Nowadays every actor simultaneously wants a job, a meeting, a revised shooting schedule and publicity, but it usually takes 4-6 weeks to ramp up production. In the UK, some productions have already started this process – the industry was confident that a deal would be reached this week, so preparatory work is already underway on a number of projects. Full production will ramp up very slowly, with Los Angeles traditionally shut down for six weeks, from Thanksgiving to New Year's.
'Wicked' film set in Bedfordshire, closed due to actors' strike. Photo: Getty
Part of this is because turning a movie off and running is like turning a tanker off and running; taking half a week off for Thanksgiving, shooting some more, and then being closed for two weeks at Christmas is expensive. Some production has already resumed, including the two-part film adaptation of Wicked, Minecraft, Deadpool 3 (now the only Marvel film released in 2024), Gladiator 2 and Venom 3, but studios have warned that before Only a few new films will begin filming in January. . It's easier with TV. Yellowjackets, White Lotus and Stranger Things are all set to re-shoot in the next few weeks.
How will this affect the UK?
The strike brought a huge portion of the UK's production sector to a standstill, and many British actors gave up tools due to their SAG-AFTRA membership. Nearly 75% of film and television employees were unemployed, with a third of them considering quitting. Experienced producers work in supermarkets or as postmen. These people will at least come to Christmas knowing there is work to do. “It cannot be overstated how badly British film and television workers have suffered,” says Philippa Childs, head of the film and television union BECTU.
The strike showed how dependent Great Britain is on the dollar. BECTU is calling on the government to help rebuild the domestic film and television sector so we are not so vulnerable if this happens again in three years. Andor, The Sandman and Hartstopper will be rebooted in the UK, but Amazon Studios' 2009 Blade Runner is not returning to Belfast.
Gladiator 2 is one of several films being rushed back into production. Photo: Alamy Does this mean actors and their chatter will be inevitable again? Is the red carpet back?
On Monday, David Tennant was in a sort of Schrödinger's Cat limbo. As a member of SAG, Disney had poured millions into the new incarnation of Doctor Who, which meant he could not promote the show with the BBC's 60th anniversary episode. But since a deal could be reached over the weekend, he was willing to do an interview that evening. In one of the alternate TARDIS universes, he apparently did just that. But from now on, red carpets, film magazines and all the usual hangouts for sex will be bursting at the seams with stars. PR people have spent the last ten days lining up “possible interviews” for late November “in case the strike is called off.” Now we can all at our leisure familiarize ourselves with the opinions of the actors on the issue of Israel and Palestine.
What about streaming?
Prices are already rising, streamers are already cutting costs and shows, companies are already trading episodes with each other for a little extra money, and big deals with show runners are no longer safe. The golden age of streaming is over. Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney+, Prime Video, Paramount + and YouTube have both increased their subscription numbers recently, meaning the average top-tier subscription now costs around £10. Netflix alone raised prices by £2 a month, and further price increases are out of the question.
“Stranger Things” Netflix. Photo: Netflix
Disney announced this week that it will spend $2 billion less on content in 2024. Ampere Analysis evaluates the world's major streaming platforms Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Paramount+ and Max/HBO Max will increase their programming budgets overall by 7 percent in 2024, up from 24 percent growth last year.
Spending on scripted dramas will fall by 30 percent, while budgets on lower-priced unscripted game shows and reality shows will rise by 22 percent. Hollywood's television production peaked last year with 599 new shows, according to an annual analysis by FX Networks. Trade press and industry reports suggest that number will fall by about 20 percent next year, to about 480. Of course, that's still too much to observe in one year.
Will movie theater prices rise and will the chains survive?
A strike coming soon after Covid will be a challenge for cinemas. With Cineworld and Empire going under control earlier this year, Odeon shutting screens in the summer and US chain AMC surviving only by raising $325 million in September by issuing 40 million shares, the industry needs customers. Cost of living pressures have impacted prices at independent theaters, and chains may have to follow suit.
Taylor Swift fan before screening the film Eras Tour at the AMC Theater in Los Angeles. Photo: AFP
A parade of big hits will help ease that pressure, and there are still some big films in 2024 – Inside Out 2 and Joker 2, to name just two. But thanks to the success of Taylor Swift's tour film Eras, which was sold directly to theaters without any studio middlemen and has brought in $231 million to date, and Beyoncé's upcoming tour film Renaissance, released directly to theaters again in December, There's a new revenue stream that could bypass Hollywood entirely. No actors, no distributors, just a huge audience. Olivia Rodrigo and Harry Styles are rumored to be planning their ceremony, and of course, comedian Kevin Bridges will be doing a stand-up special on November 17th. It may bring in less profit than Tay-Tay.
Is the Oscars still happening and will there be anything else? be different?
Submissions for the 2024 Oscars are now being accepted, and the awards ceremony will take place on March 10. Since Oscar campaigns typically involve the entire cast happily attending special screenings for Academy members from October to December, voting on the shortlist and announcing the nominees in late January, there will be a lot of work crammed into the next month or so .
Bradley Cooper's Maestro, in which he both directs and stars as Leonard Bernstein, as well as starring Oppenheimer and Barbie, the summer blockbusters vying for awards clout have gained momentum – they're well-known and require little publicity. It's smart indie films like the publishing satire American Fiction, Alexander Payne's The Leftovers, or A24's critically acclaimed Past Lives that could easily ride a wave of strategic releases in a normal year—the same studio picked up Everything everywhere and at once” to the top in 2023 – which is the end of the work;
However, it's possible that we'll see a few strike votes from WGA and SAG academy members—best actor could include the best donuts on the picket line—so there could be some surprise winners.
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