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    Philharmonic Opens Inquiry After Misconduct Allegations Are Revived

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    The New York Philharmonic commissioned an outside investigation into its culture after a magazine article explored how it handled an accusation of sexual assault in 2010.The New York Philharmonic, which has been facing an uproar since a recent magazine article detailed allegations of misconduct against two players it tried and failed to fire in 2018, said on Thursday that it was commissioning an outside investigation into its culture.Gary Ginstling, the Philharmonic’s president and chief executive, said in a letter to musicians, staff members and board members that the organization had hired an outside lawyer, Katya Jestin, a managing partner of the law firm Jenner & Block, to “launch an independent investigation into the culture of the New York Philharmonic in recent years.”“I am empowering Katya to look at everything and to leave no stone unturned, including any new allegations as they are reported,” Mr. Ginstling wrote. The decision came after a report last week in New York magazine detailed accusations of misconduct made in 2010 against the players, the associate principal trumpet, Matthew Muckey, and the principal oboist, Liang Wang.In the article Cara Kizer, a former Philharmonic horn player, came forward for the first time to publicly discuss an encounter that she said occurred while she was on tour with the Philharmonic in Vail, Colo., in 2010. She told the Vail Police Department at the time that she had been sexually assaulted after spending the evening with the two players and was given a drink she came to believe was drugged, according to police records.No charges were filed against the men and both have denied wrongdoing.In 2018 the Philharmonic, under new leadership, commissioned an investigation and moved to dismiss Mr. Muckey and Mr. Wang. But the players’ union, Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, challenged their dismissals, and an independent arbitrator forced the orchestra to reinstate them in 2020.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Philharmonic Sidelines 2 Players It Tried to Fire for Misconduct

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      The New York Philharmonic said the musicians would not perform for now, after a magazine article brought new attention to allegations of misconduct. They have denied wrongdoing.The New York Philharmonic said on Monday that two players it had tried to fire in 2018 — but was forced to rehire after the musicians’ union challenged their dismissal — would not take part in rehearsals or performances for the time being after a magazine article detailed the allegations of misconduct that had been made against them.The Philharmonic said that the players — the principal oboist, Liang Wang, and the associate principal trumpet, Matthew Muckey — would not appear as the orchestra deals with the fallout from a New York magazine article published on Friday.In the article Cara Kizer, a former Philharmonic horn player, came forward for the first time to publicly discuss an encounter that occurred when she was on tour with the Philharmonic in Vail, Colo., in 2010. She told the Vail Police Department then that she had been sexually assaulted after spending the evening with the two players and was given a drink she came to believe was drugged, according to police records.No charges were filed against the men and both have denied wrongdoing; their lawyers said they expect to return to the ensemble soon.In 2018 the Philharmonic moved to dismiss Mr. Wang and Mr. Muckey, who both joined the orchestra in 2006. It said at the time that it had received reports that the two players had “engaged in misconduct,” which it declined to describe, and that it had decided to fire them after commissioning an investigation. But the players’ union, Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, challenged their dismissals.The orchestra was forced to reinstate them in 2020 after an independent arbitrator found that they had been terminated without just cause.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      Kate Shindle on Why She’s Stepping Down as Actors’ Equity President

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      After nine years in the role, she has decided not to seek re-election in May. Her departure comes amid significant turnover in the theater industry.Kate Shindle, who has served as president of Actors’ Equity Association for nine years, is stepping down after a tenure dominated by the coronavirus pandemic that for a time idled all of the labor union’s members.Shindle, 47, said she expected to remain active in the labor movement, but that she was eager to resume working as an actor. The Equity presidency, leading a union that represents more than 51,000 theater actors and stage managers nationwide, is an unpaid, volunteer position. Because of the time required to manage the crises facing the union’s members, Shindle has worked so little as an actor that she hasn’t even qualified for her own union’s health insurance coverage.Her departure comes amid significant turnover in the theater industry. Charlotte St. Martin recently left her position as president of the Broadway League, which is the trade association most often on the opposite side of the bargaining table with Equity, and the heads of many nonprofit theaters are also leaving their positions.“It feels like it’s time,” Shindle said. “We’ve accomplished a lot. And I think turnover is good for organizations. I’ve never been one who wanted to stay until the members threw me out.”Shindle, a former Miss America, will wrap up her third and final term on May 23. These are edited excerpts from an interview.Equity imposed very strict rules during the pandemic that had the effect of limiting performance around the country. In hindsight, how do you think about Equity’s role in the state of theater over those years?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      How Flight Attendants Fought Back Against Sexism in the Airline Industry

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      Decades ago, “stewardesses” earned less than men, couldn’t get married or gain weight, and had to retire at 32. A key figure in a landmark lawsuit looks back at a not-so-golden era.In 1958, when Mary Pat Laffey Inman became a stewardess — as they were then called — for Northwest Airlines, she was 20 years old and the clock was already ticking. At 32, she would be forced to retire. That is, if she didn’t marry, get pregnant or even gain too much weight before that: All were grounds for termination. It was the golden age of aviation for everyone except, perhaps, the women serving in-flight meals to the nattily dressed passengers.Six years later, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin, and female flight attendants began to join forces against sexism.In 1970, Ms. Laffey Inman, a union leader and Northwest’s first female purser — the lead attendant on a flight — spearheaded a class-action suit, Laffey v. Northwest Airlines Inc., that resulted in the airline paying more than $30 million in damages and back wages in 1985. It also set the precedent for nondiscriminatory hiring of flight attendants across the industry. But even then, not everything changed: Flight attendants on some airlines were still subjected to “weigh-ins” into the 1990s. (Northwest merged with Delta Air Lines in 2008.)Now, decades after the landmark decision, Ms. Laffey Inman, 86, is one of several former flight attendants featured in “Fly With Me,” an “American Experience” documentary that chronicles how women fought to overcome discrimination in the airline industry. It premieres on PBS on Feb. 20. The New York Times spoke to Ms. Laffey Inman about how she made history. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.Ms. Laffey Inman in her Northwest uniform in 1968, around the time she became the airline’s first female purser, or lead attendant on a flight.Courtesy of Mary Pat Laffey InmanWhat inspired your career in the airline industry?I was working at Montefiore Hospital, in Pittsburgh. I always wanted to travel, ever since I was a kid. As a flight attendant, I could travel — all expenses paid. I thought it was wonderful. Other stewardesses and I laugh about how lucky we were to be in the industry at that time. We would bid for three-day layovers in Paris, London, Amsterdam, Tokyo. A limo would be there to pick you up and take you to the hotel.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      Actors to Start Voting on Contract on Tuesday

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      The SAG-AFTRA board voted on Friday to send the tentative deal with studios to its members for a ratification process that will end in early December.The union that represents movie and television actors said on Friday that its national board had voted with 86 percent support to send a tentative contract with studios to members for ratification.The ratification process will start on Tuesday and end the first week in December. Actors can go back to work immediately, however.Members are expected to approve the contract, which Fran Drescher, the union’s outspoken president, valued at more than $1 billion over three years. She highlighted the “extraordinary scope” of the agreement, noting that it included protections around the use of artificial intelligence, higher minimum pay, better health care funding, concessions from studios on self-taped auditions, improved hair and makeup services on sets, and a requirement for intimacy coordinators for sex scenes, among other gains.“They had to yield,” Ms. Drescher said at a news conference during a nearly 30-minute monologue that touched on Veterans Day, Bela Lugosi’s Dracula costume, her parents, the Roman Empire, the stubbornness of studios, Buddhism, Frederick Douglass and her dog.The union, SAG-AFTRA, which represents tens of thousands of actors, and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of studios, reached the tentative agreement on Wednesday. It followed a bitter standoff that contributed to a near-complete shutdown of production in the entertainment industry. At 118 days, it was the longest movie and television strike in the union’s 90-year history.The tentative deal was also historic, according to the studio alliance, which said it reflected “the biggest contract-on-contract gains in the history of the union.” The actors’ strike, combined with a writers’ strike that started in May and was resolved in September, devastated the entertainment economy. Hundreds of thousands of crew members were idled, with some losing their homes and turning to food banks for groceries. Some small businesses that service studios — costume dry cleaners, prop warehouses, catering companies — may never recover.The dual strikes caused roughly $10 billion in losses nationwide, according to Todd Holmes, an associate professor of entertainment media management at California State University, Northridge. While the big studios are based in Los Angeles, they also use soundstage complexes in Georgia, New York, New Jersey and New Mexico.Kevin Klowden, chief global strategist with the Milken Institute, an economic think tank, was more cautious with his estimate, putting losses at more than $6 billion. He said it “may take a while” to know the true size.On Friday, the SAG-AFTRA board, which includes Sharon Stone, Sean Astin and Rosie O’Donnell, made public a summary of the tentative contract’s contents. While not receiving everything it asked for, the union achieved significant gains.The final sticking point involved “synthetic fakes,” or the use of artificial intelligence to create an entirely fabricated character by melding together recognizable features from real actors. The union won consent and compensation guarantees.“You could imagine prompting a generative A.I. system that’s been trained on a bunch of actors’ performances to create a digital performer, for example, who has Julia Roberts’s smile,” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s executive director, said in an interview. “Before this agreement, there wasn’t any contractual or legal basis to require consent or prohibit that. Now there will be.”But this strike was never about stars. A-listers like Jennifer Lawrence and Brad Pitt negotiate their own contracts (or, more precisely, their agents do). The tentative contract covers minimums, or what actors who don’t have any clout get paid.SAG-AFTRA had demanded an 11 percent raise for minimum pay in the first year of a contract. Studios had insisted that they could offer no more than 5 percent, the same as had recently been given (and agreed to) by unions for writers and directors. In the end, the union was able to win a 7 percent first-year raise.“This is really important because it sends a very clear signal to other unions,” Mr. Crabtree-Ireland said. “I’m not aware of anyone ever being able to break the pattern before, because it’s always been that the A.M.P.T.P. establishes a number and everyone gets held to it.”SAG-AFTRA failed in one regard. It had gone into negotiations demanding a percentage of streaming service revenue. It had proposed a 2 percent share — later dropped to 1 percent, before a pivot to a per-subscriber fee. Ms. Drescher had made the demand a priority, but companies like Netflix balked, calling it “a bridge too far.”Instead, the studio alliance proposed a new residual (a type of royalty) for streaming programs based on performance metrics, which the union, after making some adjustments, agreed to take. It is similar to what the Writers Guild of America achieved in its negotiations: Actors in streaming shows that attract at least 20 percent of subscribers will receive a bonus.Unlike the Writers Guild, however, SAG-AFTRA also got the studio alliance to agree to a system in which 25 percent of the bonus money will go into a fund that will be distributed to actors in less successful streaming shows.“I felt like, is this a win or a loss?” Ms. Drescher said. “But we’re getting the money. We opened a new revenue stream. What matters is that we got into another pocket.” More

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      in Movies

      SAG-AFTRA and Hollywood Studios Agree to Deal to End Actors’ Strike

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      The agreement all but ends one of the longest labor crises in the history of the entertainment industry. Union members still have to approve the deal.One of the longest labor crises in Hollywood history is finally coming to an end.SAG-AFTRA, the union representing tens of thousands of actors, reached a tentative deal for a new contract with entertainment companies on Wednesday, clearing the way for the $134 billion American movie and television business to swing back into motion.Hollywood’s assembly lines have been at a near-standstill since May because of a pair of strikes by writers and actors, resulting in financial pain for studios and for many of the two million Americans — makeup artists, set builders, location scouts, chauffeurs, casting directors — who work in jobs directly or indirectly related to making TV shows and films.Upset about streaming-service pay and fearful of fast-developing artificial intelligence technology, actors joined screenwriters on picket lines in July. The writers had walked out in May over similar concerns. It was the first time since 1960, when Ronald Reagan was the head of the actors’ union and Marilyn Monroe was still starring in films, that actors and writers were both on strike.The Writers Guild of America, which represents 11,500 screenwriters, reached a tentative agreement with studios on Sept. 24 and ended its 148-day strike on Sept. 27. In the coming days, SAG-AFTRA members will vote on whether to accept their union’s deal, which includes hefty gains, like increases in compensation for streaming shows and films, better health care funding, concessions from studios on self-taped auditions, and guarantees that studios will not use artificial intelligence to create digital replicas of their likenesses without payment or approval.SAG-AFTRA, however, failed to receive a percentage of streaming service revenue. It had proposed a 2 percent share — later dropped to 1 percent, before a pivot to a per-subscriber fee. Fran Drescher, the union’s president, had made the demand a priority, but companies like Netflix balked, calling it “a bridge too far.”Instead, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of entertainment companies, proposed a new residual for streaming programs based on performance metrics, which the union, after making some adjustments, agreed to take.At 118 days, it was the longest movie and television strike in the union’s 90-year history. SAG-AFTRA said in a terse statement that its negotiating committee had voted unanimously to approve the tentative deal, which will proceed to the union’s national board on Friday for “review and consideration.”It added, “Further details will be released following that meeting.”Shaan Sharma, a member of the union’s negotiating committee, said he had mixed emotions about the tentative deal, though he declined to go into specifics because the SAG-AFTRA board still needed to review it.“They say a negotiation is when both sides are unhappy because you can’t get everything you want on either side,” he said, adding, “You can be happy for the deal overall, but you can feel a sense of loss for something that you didn’t get that you thought was important.”Ms. Drescher, who had been active on social media during the strike, didn’t immediately post anything on Wednesday evening. She and other SAG-AFTRA officials had come under severe pressure from agents, crew member unions and even some of her own members, including George Clooney and Ben Affleck, to wrap up what had started to feel like an interminable negotiation.“I’m relieved,” Kevin Zegers, an actor most recently seen in the ABC show “The Rookie: Feds,” said in an interview after the union’s announcement. “If it didn’t end today, there would have been riots.”The studio alliance said in a statement that the tentative agreement “represents a new paradigm,” giving SAG-AFTRA “the biggest contract-on-contract gains in the history of the union.”There is uncertainty over what a poststrike Hollywood will look like. But one thing is certain: There will be fewer jobs for actors and writers in the coming years, undercutting the wins that unions achieved at the bargaining table.Even before the strikes, entertainment companies were cutting back on the number of television shows they ordered, a result of severe pressure from Wall Street to turn money-losing streaming services into profitable businesses. Analysts expect companies to make up for the pair of pricey new labor contracts by reducing costs elsewhere, including by making fewer shows and canceling first-look deals.The actors, like the writers, said the streaming era had negatively affected their working conditions and compensation.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesFor the moment, however, the agreements with actors and writers represent a capitulation by Hollywood’s biggest companies, which started the bargaining process with an expectation that the unions, especially SAG-AFTRA, would be relatively compliant. Early in the talks, for instance, the studio alliance — Netflix, Disney, NBCUniversal, Apple, Amazon, Sony, Paramount, Warner Bros. — refused to negotiate on multiple union proposals. “Rejected our proposal, refused to make a counter” became a rallying cry among the striking workers.As the studio alliance tried to limit any gains, the companies cited business challenges, including the rapid decline of cable television and continued streaming losses. Disney, struggling with $4 billion in streaming losses in 2022, eliminated 7,000 jobs in the spring.But the alliance underestimated the pent-up anger pulsating among the studios’ own workers. Writers and actors called the moment “existential,” arguing that the streaming era had deteriorated the working conditions and compensation for rank-and-file members of their professions so much that they could no longer make a living. The companies brushed such comments aside as union bluster and Hollywood dramatics. They found out the workers were serious.With the strikes dragging into the fall and the financial pain on both sides mounting, the studio alliance reluctantly switched from trying to limit gains to figuring out how to get Hollywood’s creative assembly lines running again — even if that meant bending to the will of the unions.“It was all macho, tough-guy stuff from the companies for a while,” said Jason E. Squire, professor emeritus at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. “But that certainly did change.”There had previously been 15 years of labor peace in Hollywood.“The executives of these companies didn’t need to worry about labor very much — they worried about other things,” Chris Keyser, a chair of the Writers Guild negotiating committee, said in an interview after the writers’ strike concluded. “They worried about Wall Street and their free cash flow, and all of that.”Mr. Keyser continued: “They could say to their labor executives, ‘Do the same thing you’ve been doing year after year. Just take care of that, because labor costs are not going to be a problem.’ Suddenly, that wasn’t true anymore.” As a result of the strikes, studios are widely expected to overhaul their approach to union negotiations, which in many ways dates to the 1980s.Writers Guild leaders called their deal “exceptional” and “transformative,” noting the creation of viewership-based streaming bonuses and a sharp increase in royalty payments for overseas viewing on streaming services. Film writers received guaranteed payment for a second draft of screenplays, something the union had tried but failed to secure for at least two decades.The Writers Guild said the contract included enhancements worth roughly $233 million annually. When bargaining started in the spring, the guild proposed $429 million in enhancements, while studios countered with $86 million, according to the guild.For an industry upended by the streaming revolution, which the pandemic sped up, the tentative accord takes a meaningful step toward stabilization. About $10 billion in TV and film production has been on hold, according to ProdPro, a production tracking service. That amounts to 176 shows and films.The fallout has been significant, both inside and outside the industry. California’s economy alone has lost more than $5 billion, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom. Because the actors’ union prohibited its members from participating in promotional campaigns for already-finished work, studios pulled movies like “Dune: Part Two” from the fall release schedule, forgoing as much as $1.6 billion in worldwide ticket sales, according to David A. Gross, a film consultant.With labor harmony restored, the coming weeks should be chaotic. Studio executives and producers will begin a mad scramble to secure soundstages, stars, insurance, writers and crew members so productions can start running again as quickly as possible. Because of the end-of-year holidays, some projects may not restart until January.Both sides will have to go through the arduous process of working together again after a searing six-month standoff. The strikes tore at the fabric of the clubby entertainment world, with actors’ union leaders describing executives as “land barons of a medieval time,” and writers and actors still fuming that it took studio executives months, not weeks, to reach a deal.Workers and businesses caught in the crossfire were idled, potentially leaving bitter feelings toward both sides.And it appears that Hollywood executives will now have to contend with a resurgent labor force, mirroring many other American businesses. In recent weeks, production workers at Walt Disney Animation voted to unionize, as did visual-effects workers at Marvel.Contracts with powerful unions that represent Hollywood crews will expire in June and July, and negotiations are expected to be fractious.“It seemed apparent early on that we were part of a trend in American society where labor was beginning to flex its muscles — where unions were beginning to reassert their power,” said Mr. Keyser, the Writers Guild official.Brooks Barnes More

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      in Movies

      A Mixed Mood as Hollywood Strikes Finally End

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      Celebratory feelings are competing with resentment over the work stoppage and worries about the business era that is coming.It should be a rapturous time in Hollywood.Writers have been back at their keyboards for a month, having negotiated a strike-ending deal so favorable that it seemed to leave even them a bit gobsmacked. On Wednesday, the actors’ union said it had negotiated a tentative contract of its own, all but ending its 118-day strike and clearing a path for the film and television business to roar back to life for the first time since May.Champagne for everyone!Instead, the mood in the entertainment capital is decidedly mixed, as celebratory feelings compete with resentment over the work stoppage and worries about the business era that is coming.“People are excited — thrilled — to be getting back to work,” said Jon Liebman, co-chief executive of Brillstein Entertainment Partners, a venerable Hollywood management firm. “But they are also mindful of some sobering challenges that lie ahead.”Analysts estimate that higher labor expenses will add 10 percent to the cost of making a show, and studios are expected to compensate by cutting back on production.“Companies are not going to increase their budgets accordingly,” said Jason E. Squire, editor of “The Movie Business Book” and host of a companion podcast. “They will compensate by making less. The end.”Hulu, for instance, expects the number of new shows it makes in 2024 to fall by about a third from 2022.The Directors Guild of America also has a new contract that guarantees raises. And two more union contracts, both covering crews, come due in the next few months. Studios will either have to pay up or risk another shutdown. “READY for our contract fight next year,” Lindsay Dougherty, lead organizer for Teamsters Local 399, recently said on X, formerly known as Twitter. Her branch represents more than 6,000 Hollywood workers, including truck drivers, location managers and casting directors.Even before the strikes, Hollywood was swinging from boom times to austerity. Peak TV, the glut of new programming that helped define the streaming era, ended last year as Wall Street began pressuring streaming services to put a priority on profit over subscriber growth. TV networks and streaming platforms ordered 40 percent fewer adult scripted series in the second half of 2022 than they did in the same period in 2019, according to Ampere Analysis, a research firm.Put another way, 599 adult scripted series were made last year. Some analysts predict that, by 2025, the annual number will be closer to 400, a roughly one-third decline. Even the most modest series employs hundreds of people, including agents, managers, publicists and stylists, who in turn fuel the broader economy.“With the strike over, we’re all staring down the barrel of a painful structural adjustment that predates the strike,” Zack Stentz, a screenwriter with credits like “X-Men: First Class” and “Thor,” wrote on X. “A lot of careers and even entire companies are going to go away over the next year.” (He added, on a glass-half-full note: “This is also a time for clever little mammals to survive and even thrive in the new landscape. Your job is to be a clever mammal.”)The streaming profitability problem remains largely unsolved. Netflix and Hulu make money, and Warner Bros. Discovery has said its Max service will turn a profit by the end of the year. But Disney+, Paramount+, Peacock and others continue to lose money. Peacock alone will bleed $2.8 billion in red ink in 2023, Comcast said last month.Most analysts say that there are too many streaming services and that the weakest will ultimately close or merge with bigger competitors.The entertainment industry’s underlying cable television and box office problems also remain dire, in some cases growing worse during the five months it took to restore labor peace.Fewer than 50 million homes will pay for cable or satellite television by 2027, down from 64 million today and 100 million seven years ago, according to PwC, the accounting giant. In July, Disney announced that it was exploring a once-unthinkable sale of a stake in ESPN, the cable giant that has powered much of Disney’s growth over the past two decades. Paramount Global’s once-venerable cable portfolio, centered on Nickelodeon and MTV, has also been pummeled by cord cutting; Paramount shares have dropped nearly 50 percent since May.The film business is also unsettled. Movies now arrive in homes (either through digital stores or on streaming) after as little as 17 days in theaters, compared with about 90 days, which had been the standard for decades.Audiences have finally started to tire of Hollywood’s prevailing movie business strategy — endless sequels, each more bloated than the last — with lackluster results for the seventh “Mission: Impossible” film, the fifth “Indiana Jones” installment and 11th “Fast & Furious” chapter as evidence.Movies now arrive in homes (either through digital stores or on streaming) after as little as 17 days in theaters, compared with the decades-old standard of about 90 days.Philip Cheung for The New York TimesTheaters are not dead, as blockbuster turnout for “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” has shown. But ticket-buying data suggests a worrisome trend: People who were going to six to eight movies a year before the pandemic are now going to three or four. Even the most ardent fans of big-screen entertainment are paring back.Cinemas in North America sold about $7.7 billion in tickets this year though October, a 17 percent decline from the same period in 2019.There is more competition for leisure time; TikTok has 150 million users in the United States, a majority of them younger than 30, and the average time spent on the app is growing quickly.Everywhere you look in Hollywood, or so it seems, businesses are trying to cut costs. Citing the strikes and “volatile larger entertainment marketplace,” Anonymous Content, a production and management company, laid off 8 percent of its staff last month. United Talent Agency also trimmed its head count, as did several competing agencies.DreamWorks Animation recently eliminated 4 percent of its work force, while Starz, the premium cable network and streaming service, is reducing head count by 10 percent. Netflix is restructuring its animation division, which is expected to result in layoffs and fewer self-made films.Consider what is happening at Disney, which is widely considered the strongest of the old-line entertainment companies, partly because it is the largest.Before the strikes, Disney had about 150 television shows and a dozen movies in production. But worries about streaming profitability and the decline of cable television have battered Disney’s stock price. Shares have been trading in the $80 range, down from $197 two years ago. Sorting out ESPN’s future is Disney’s first priority, but the company is also selling holdings in India and weighing whether to part with assets like ABC; the Freeform cable channel; and a chain of local broadcast stations.Disney is so vulnerable that the activist investor Nelson Peltz has made it known to The Wall Street Journal that he intends, for the second time in a year, to push for board seats. Disney fended off Mr. Peltz in February, partly by saying it would cut $5.5 billion in costs and eliminate 7,000 jobs. On Wednesday, Disney said that, in the end, it had cut $7.5 billion and more than 8,000 jobs. It added that it would continue to tighten its belt.Phil Cusick, an analyst at J.P. Morgan, said of Disney in a note to clients in late September, “The company plans to make less content and spend less on what it does make.”Nicole Sperling More

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      in Movies

      Studios Said to See Progress in Talks With Striking Actors

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      The entertainment companies are growing optimistic that the work stoppage may end soon, though some issues remain unresolved, people briefed on the matter said.Following several productive days at the negotiating table, Hollywood studios are growing optimistic that they are getting closer to a deal to end the 108-day actors’ strike, according to three people briefed on the matter.These people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the labor situation, cautioned on Sunday that some issues remain unresolved with the actors, including protections around the use of artificial intelligence technology to create digital replicas of their likenesses without payment or approval. But other knots had started to become untangled, the people said.SAG-AFTRA, as the actors’ union is known, had been asking for an 11 percent raise for minimum pay in the first year of a contract, for instance. Studios had insisted that they could offer no more than 5 percent, the same as had recently been given (and agreed to) by unions for writers and directors. Early last week, however, studios lifted their offer to 7 percent. By Friday, SAG-AFTRA had eased its demand to 9 percent.SAG-AFTRA did not respond to requests for comment. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which negotiates on behalf of the major entertainment companies, declined to comment.In an email to SAG-AFTRA members on Friday night, the union’s negotiating committee said, “We completed a full and productive day.” On Saturday, the union sent a routine reminder about pickets planned the coming week, including one scheduled for Wednesday at Walt Disney Studios. The sides continued to negotiate on Sunday.Last week, studio executives made it known — in conversations with filmmakers, agents, reporters and actors themselves — that a deal must be done (or nearly so) by the end of this week, or else sets were likely to remain dark for another two months.Put another way, unless talks speed up, January could be the soonest that casts (and crews) see paychecks.Brinkmanship? Of course. It’s a standard part of any strike. The companies, however, said they were simply pointing to the calendar. It will take time to reassemble creative teams, a process complicated by the coming holidays. Preproduction (before anyone gathers on a set) for new shows can take up to 12 weeks, with movies taking roughly 16 weeks. Bake in the time for contract ratification by the SAG-AFTRA members.More than 4,000 mostly workaday actors responded on Thursday with an open letter to their union, saying, “We have not come all this way to cave now.” They added, “We cannot and will not accept a contract that fails to address the vital and existential problems that we all need fixed.”At the same time, some stars have pressured union leaders to approach negotiations with greater urgency. Out-of-work crew members have also grown increasingly frustrated with the Hollywood shutdown. The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which represents 170,000 crew members in North America, has estimated that its West Coast members alone have lost more than $1.4 billion in wages.For their part, companies are under pressure to salvage their spring television schedules and movie lineups. On Friday, Disney delayed a live-action version of “Snow White,” which had been scheduled for March 26, because it would be impossible to finish in time. Earlier in the week, Paramount pushed back Tom Cruise’s next “Mission: Impossible” movie, along with “A Quiet Place: Day One,” starring Lupita Nyong’o.The entertainment business has been at a standstill for months because of strikes by writers, who walked out in May, and actors, who joined them in July. The writers’ strike was resolved last month, prompting hopes of a speedy resolution between studios and the actors’ union. Instead, the process has been slow.Talks between the sides restarted on Tuesday after breaking down earlier in the month over a union proposal for a per-subscriber fee from streaming services, which Netflix’s co-chief executive Ted Sarandos publicly dismissed as a “levy” and “a bridge too far.” SAG-AFTRA accused studio executives of “bully tactics.”It is unclear how the streaming issue might be resolved. But there is real hope in Hollywood that people may soon be back to work.“At this time, we have no concrete information from any studio,” Michael Akins, an International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees official in Georgia, wrote to members on Friday. “But the writing is clearly on the wall that the industry shutdown is in its final days.”John Koblin More

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      After Outcry, Writers Guild Tries to Explain Silence on Hamas Attack

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      Facing mounting pressure from more than 300 Hollywood screenwriters questioning why it had not publicly condemned the Hamas attack on Israel this month, the Writers Guild of America West sent a letter to its members on Tuesday that sought to explain its silence while also calling the attack “an abomination.”The letter, signed by the guild’s leadership and viewed by The New York Times, said the reason the union had not issued a statement after the attack on Oct. 7 was not “because we are paralyzed by factionalism or masking hateful views” but rather because “we are American labor leaders, aware of our limitations and humbled by the magnitude of this conflict.”The guild’s letter acknowledged that it had publicly commented on other situations “which could be characterized as beyond our scope,” but that it had not made any statement following, for instance, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.“It can be an imprecise science for a labor union to pick and choose where it weighs in on both domestic and world affairs,” said the letter, which was signed by the president, Meredith Stiehm; the vice president, Michele Mulroney; and Betsy Thomas, the secretary-treasurer.Still, they added, “We understand this has caused tremendous pain and for that we are truly sorry.”(The west and east branches of the W.G.A. are affiliated unions with separate leadership that together represent more than 11,000 writers.)On Oct. 15, a group of screenwriters sent an open letter to the guild asking why it had not publicly denounced the attack on Israel, noting the union had made public statements in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and the #MeToo reckoning. They also noted that other major Hollywood unions had issued statements condemning the attack.The letter has now been signed by more than 300 writers, including Jerry Seinfeld, Eric Roth (“Killers of the Flower Moon”) and Amy Sherman-Palladino (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”). Some Jewish screenwriters had begun to question whether they should remain part of an organization that they felt did not support them.Ms. Stiehm’s initial reply to the open letter was an email to inquiring members saying that the lack of response was because “the board’s viewpoints are varied, and we found consensus out of reach.”The letter on Tuesday, which said the guild’s leadership was “horrified by the atrocities committed by Hamas,” was an attempt to stem the outrage. “I really appreciate this statement,” said the screenwriter Howard Gordon (“24” and “Homeland”), who added in an interview that the silence from the guild had prompted responses from both Jewish and non-Jewish members ranging from rage to fear to the desire to resign from the organization.“I hope this letter goes a long way to sort of calming some of it down,” said Mr. Gordon, who signed the open letter to the guild. “Hopefully something constructive comes out of this, which is an acknowledgment of how we combat and confront and talk about antisemitism.”For Dan Gordon, however, the apology came too late. Mr. Gordon, 76, sent a letter Tuesday morning resigning his membership in the organization, calling its silence “appalling.”“It is corrosive to me as a writer and repugnant to every fiber of my being as a person of conscience,” wrote Mr. Gordon, who has no relation to Howard Gordon and is best known for “The Hurricane” and “Wyatt Earp.” “I am resigning my membership not because I wish to work on nonunion projects, nor cross any picket line, but because I no longer wish to be a fellow traveler with those who hide behind the fetid veil of a morally bankrupt wokeism and stand silent in the face of unadulterated evil.”Mr. Gordon’s latest film, “Irena’s Vow” — about a young Polish-Catholic woman during World War II who hid 12 Jews in the basement of a German officer’s house without his knowledge for almost a year — debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.He will change his guild membership status to “financial core,” according to his letter. Under that designation, he will still receive the contract benefits earned by the guild but he will no longer be able to vote or attend any guild meetings. The designation is irreversible and viewed by the guild as an act of disloyalty. The W.G.A. maintains an online list of members who have chosen this status, with a reminder that “Fi-Core is forever.”Mr. Gordon called Tuesday’s letter from the guild “pusillanimous” and faulted it for not calling for a release of the hostages.“I don’t retract anything I said,” he added in an interview. “If one cannot condemn, clearly, and without reservation, what Hamas perpetrated, one’s moral compass is absent, not broken.” More