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      Actors are Turning to Cameo Amid SAG-AFTRA Strike

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      Others are using the service, through which fans can pay for personalized videos, to engage with followers while not publicly promoting work.On July 24 Cheyenne Jackson, an actor, posted a photo on Instagram that showed him shirtless, with glistening abs, veiny arms and his lips parted.“This is me subtly letting you know I’m back on @cameo,” its caption read.Cameo is a service through which celebrities and others can be paid to make personalized videos commemorating birthdays, bachelorette parties, divorces and the like. Mr. Jackson, who has appeared in the “American Horror Story” TV shows and in “30 Rock,” said in a phone interview that he reactivated his account because of the continuing strike by SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union.Mr. Jackson, 48, charges $95 for a video message and cited bills — “I have two kids” — as one reason he is on Cameo. “There are only so much sources of income,” he said.“My husband cringed a little,” he added. “But you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”Since Cameo debuted in 2016, some actors have used it when traditional work has dried up. In 2021, as the pandemic raged, the actor Andrew Rannells joined Cameo to raise money for the Entertainment Community Fund, a nonprofit formerly known as the Actors Fund. On a recent episode of “And Just Like That…,” the “Sex and the City” reboot, the character Che Diaz, played by Sara Ramirez, starts making Cameo videos after a TV pilot is canceled.According to data provided by Cameo, there was a 137 percent increase in the number of accounts reactivated or created on Cameo in July compared to June (the strike started on July 14). The number of orders for videos remained about the same for each month, but Cameo said orders usually drop in July because there aren’t events like graduations and holidays like Father’s Day.Some of the new and reactivated accounts were for people unaffected by the strike, but others were for union actors like Mr. Jackson and Alyssa Milano. Fran Drescher, the SAG-AFTRA president, also reactivated her account, according to Cameo, though it is not currently accepting bookings.The actress Alyssa Milano, who charges $250 for a video message on Cameo, said she was using the service as an income supplement while traditional work has dried up.via CameoThe actress Christa B. Allen said she reactivated her Cameo account as a way to engage with fans at a time when she is making fewer public appearances.via CameoMs. Milano, 50, who charges $250 for a video message, said in an email that Cameo “is a great way to supplement some income during this idle time.” Ms. Drescher’s representatives said she was unavailable to comment for this article.While the actors’ union is on strike, its members are forbidden from filming most projects and from promoting most projects at movie premieres, film festivals and events like Comic-Con. But making Cameo videos, for the most part, is allowed, said Sue-Anne Morrow, the national director of contract strategic initiatives and podcasts at SAG-AFTRA.“As long as there’s no promotion of struck work within the Cameo, there’s no problem,” Ms. Morrow said in an email.In May, around the time that movie and television writers’ unions went on strike, the actors’ union finalized a deal with Cameo that allows its members to have earnings from certain bookings applied toward their health insurance minimum earnings requirement, Ms. Morrow said. Those bookings must be made through Cameo 4 Business, where corporate customers like insurance companies and grocery store chains hire talent for promotional videos.Ms. Morrow said that the union pursued the agreement because Cameo is one of many ways actors can support themselves when they’re not acting.The average price of a Cameo 4 Business booking is $1,700, said Steven Galanis, a founder of Cameo and its chief executive. Non-business bookings — the types of videos Cameo is most known for — average $70. Cameo receives 25 percent of the fee for any booking, and the rest goes to the talent.Mr. Galanis compared the opportunity created by the strike for Cameo to the period of time in the early pandemic when, as he put it, “every other income sort of dried up” for actors and other entertainers. “I’m hoping that the strike ends tomorrow,” he said. “But if it doesn’t, we’re going to be here.”On July 18, days after the actors’ union went on strike, Cameo announced a round of layoffs, which happened a little more than a year after the company laid off 87 workers in May 2022. Mr. Galanis declined to comment on the number of people affected by the recent layoffs, or on the number of people now working at Cameo.Some actors who have started reusing the service since the strike said that making money was not the only reason that they returned to it. Christa B. Allen, who has appeared in the TV show “Revenge” and in the film “13 Going on 30,” said that Cameo offers an opportunity to engage with fans at a time when she is making fewer public appearances.“We’re nothing without our fans,” she said. Cameo, she added, lets actors “connect with the people that love them and have supported their career in a time when they’re not going to be making traditional media.”Ms. Allen, 31, who uses the stage name Christa Belle, reactivated her Cameo account during the strike after using it sporadically since 2017. She charges $75 per booking and said she has made about $1,000 to date.“Cameo is not something I think of as a moneymaker,” she said. More

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      Hollywood Strike Leaves Influencers Sidelined and Confused

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      Despite not being in the actors’ union, many content creators are passing up deals to promote films or TV shows because they don’t want to be barred from the guild or face online vitriol.Deanna Giulietti is not in the actors’ union, but she turned down $28,000 last week because of its strike.Ms. Giulietti, a 29-year-old content creator with 1.8 million TikTok followers, had received an offer to promote the new season of Hulu’s hit show “Only Murders in the Building.”But SAG-AFTRA, as the union is known, recently issued rules stating that any influencer who engages in promotion for one of the Hollywood studios the actors are striking against will be ineligible for membership. (Disney is the majority owner of Hulu.) That gave Ms. Giulietti, who also acts and aspires to one day join the union, reason enough to decline the offer from Influential, a marketing agency working with Hulu.The union’s rule is part of a variety of aggressive tactics that hit at a pivotal moment for Hollywood labor and shows its desire to assert itself in a new era and with a different, mostly younger wave of creative talent. “I want to be in these Netflix shows, I want to be in the Hulu shows, but we’re standing by the writers, we’re standing by SAG,” Ms. Giulietti said. “People write me off whenever I say I’m an influencer, and I’m like, ‘No, I really feel I could be making the difference here.’”That difference comes at a cost. In addition to the Hulu deal, Ms. Giulietti recently declined a $5,000 offer from the app TodayTix to promote the Searchlight Pictures movie “Theater Camp.” (Disney also owns Searchlight.) She said she was living at home with her parents in Cheshire, Conn., and putting off renting an apartment in New York City while she saw how the strike — which, along with a writers’ strike, could go on for months — would affect her income.Representatives for Searchlight and TodayTix did not respond to requests for comment. Hulu and Influential declined to comment.The last time Hollywood’s screen actors and writers went on strike, social media platforms and the $5 billion influencer industry didn’t exist. The actors’ union began admitting content creators in 2021 and still has only a small number of them, but questions have quickly emerged around how the union’s dispute with the major Hollywood studios will affect popular internet personalities.The union’s message that content creators will be blocked from membership if they provide work or services for struck companies has sent many scrambling. A number of creators have pledged support for writers and actors and circulated “scab” lists of influencers who promote new releases or appear at related events. Others have been frustrated or confused by instructions from a union that doesn’t protect them, and that some had never heard of.SAG-AFTRA, which represents some 160,000 movie and television actors, approved a strike on July 13. The division with the studios is driven largely by concerns about compensation in the streaming era and artificial intelligence. They joined screenwriters, who walked off the job in May, the first dual shutdown since 1960. During the strike, actors are not able to engage in publicity efforts for their projects or appear at film festivals or events like Comic-Con.Influencers have become crucial to the entertainment industry in recent years, especially during the pandemic, building buzz and promoting products. They post videos to hype new TV shows and movies, appear on red carpets and at events like the MTV Video Music Awards, and unbox products tied to film and television characters. Typically, as in the case with Ms. Giulietti, outside agencies hire creators on behalf of the studios.“If I were to help the big studios amid this, I’m just hurting myself in the future,” said Mario Mirante, a comedian with 3.6 million followers on TikTok.Marshall Scheuttle for The New York TimesNow those activities, besides limiting their career ambitions, could lead to internet backlash, with one nonunion influencer already posting an apology video for appearing at a recent Disney movie premiere. Others have posted promotional videos anyway, without backtracking or pulling the content. At least one creator posting from a recent premiere opted to turn off their TikTok comments, possibly to avoid potential criticism. On the flip side, videos from creators about jobs and events that they rejected in solidarity with actors have racked up praise and views on TikTok.“We don’t have power to make decisions for the talent, but we will in this moment recommend not engaging with struck work or struck companies on paid or organic projects,” said Victoria Bachan, president of Whalar Talent, a unit of a creator commerce company that works with more than 200 content creators. She added that young creators were also more apt to be supportive of unions and organized labor.Still, Whitney Singleton, a 27-year-old with 1.2 million TikTok followers, has been frustrated by what is being asked of her. She had never heard of SAG-AFTRA until the past couple of weeks. Ms. Singleton, using the moniker @KeepUpRadio, has attracted fans by singing and rapping about her favorite video games like Fortnite and streaming herself playing video games. It has been her full-time job for three years. She has collaborated with struck companies like Amazon in the past.“I really do value creators, and I want them to get what they deserve,” Ms. Singleton said. “But it’s really hard for me to just be finding out about an organization and being expected to fall in line with their initiative when I feel like it’s new to me and the influencer space.”She said some influencers were being asked to turn down five-figure deals, and that “the majority of creators I’ve talked to about it feel it’s unfair that as nonunion members, they’re being included in this conversation.”Ms. Singleton was invited to an early screening of the “Barbie” movie and said that while it wasn’t a paid promotion, the union’s guidelines for promoting the movie were “what I would deem murky.” Ultimately, she decided to post about the event, for which she dyed her hair pink.“I actually got no negative feedback, it was all positive,” she said. “For a moment, I felt a bit scared and put in a corner with these requirements because I respect creators in all industries, but I wouldn’t be being true to my heart if I had let those things stop me from living my life and sharing the content.”The union did not respond to questions about the criticism or about how many influencers are included in its membership. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which negotiates on behalf of the biggest studios, has said its offers to the writers and the actors were “historic” improvements on their previous contracts.The reality for many creators is that they dream of someday achieving a level of fame beyond the smartphone screen, making the threat of blacklisting by Hollywood’s most powerful union an ominous one.Mario Mirante, a 28-year-old comedian on TikTok with 3.6 million followers, recently posted a popular video about turning down a deal to promote a show based on his support for actors and writers and his long-term ambitions. Mr. Mirante has hoped to work in Hollywood since childhood, and even has a tattoo of Jim Carrey as “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” on his arm.“That’s a lot of influencers’ goal and aspiration and why they do it,” said Mr. Mirante, who lives in Las Vegas. “We love to entertain and express ourselves, and that’s the Super Bowl, that’s the ultimate, being in a movie or a TV show.”Mr. Mirante has previously been paid to promote the movie “Champions” starring Woody Harrelson and a product tied to the “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise. “If I were to help the big studios amid this, I’m just hurting myself in the future, if that makes any sense,” he said. “Of course I’m not a part of it right now, but they’re fighting for basic rights, livable wages, not to have their A.I. likeness taken.”Krishna Subramanian, a founder of the influencer marketing firm Captiv8, said studios might need to pivot away from creators during the strike and get agencies to make more traditional display ads to place on Facebook and other sites.Simone Umba is a TikTok creator with more than 300,000 followers who primarily posts about TV shows and movies but has paused making such videos. She said that many influencers felt that they were “stuck in the middle,” but that most were opting to side with the union even as invitations and deals piled up.“We knew we were going to get approached, and it’s like we’re in a really messy family feud,” Ms. Umba, 26, said.She added, “Regardless of if you want to join the union or not, you don’t want to be one of those people that was willing to take a check instead of standing in support of people fighting for actual livable wages.”Ms. Umba said that it had been painful to miss out on posting about the star-studded “Barbie” movie after this summer’s marketing bonanza and that she had declined to attend an early screening of the film in Atlanta. She and a friend were messaging recently after trailers for “The Marvels” dropped, agonizing over their inability to post.“We were texting each other back and forth, like, this is so hard,” she said. She said she was prepared to hold out for months but was already thinking of holiday releases. She crossed her fingers, held them up and said, “Please, please, don’t let it get to Christmas.” More

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      ‘Barbenheimer’ Is a Huge Hollywood Moment and Maybe the Last for a While

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      The big launch of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” should have been a celebratory moment, but an industry on pause has darkened the mood.Margot Robbie in “Barbie” and Cillian Murphy in “Oppenheimer” will help bring hundreds of millions of dollars in box office receipts this weekend.Warner Bros Pictures/Universal Pictures, via Associated PressThe film industry’s happiest weekend in a long time may also be its last happy weekend for many months.With the dual opening of “Barbie,” Greta Gerwig’s comedy based on the Mattel doll, and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” a biopic about the mastermind behind the atomic bomb, the pop culture phenomenon of “Barbenheimer” is upon us. Though the movies are wildly different in style and tone, by helpfully landing on the same day, the buildup has so captured the public consciousness that many movie fans, who have been slow to return to theaters at all, are eager to watch two of the year’s most anticipated titles back-to-back.Analysts have predicted a record-breaking box office weekend: “Barbie” will debut well north of $150 million domestically and may even top the opening gross of this year’s champ, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” “Oppenheimer,” also in its first weekend, is set to make more than $50 million, a thunderous achievement for a dense, three-hour drama. For a theatrical sector still battered by the pandemic and diminished by the rise of streaming, this potent double win would normally presage popped corks all over Hollywood.But any champagne will come with caveats, as the two movies open during a dual strike that has brought the industry to a near-standstill.On Friday, the Hollywood actors’ strike reached the one-week mark, after the 160,000 members of the SAG-AFTRA union joined members of the Writers Guild of America, who have been on strike since May. Both labor actions are expected to last for months, scuttling plans to put new studio films into the pipeline and jeopardizing the ones already set to come out, since actors have been ordered not to promote them during the strike.“It’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times,” said Michael Moses, who oversaw the release of “Oppenheimer” in his role as the chief marketing officer for Universal Pictures.He noted that in the past few weeks, as the “Barbenheimer” hype grew, so did the animosity between the guilds and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the organization that bargains on behalf of the studios. With both sides entrenched and the strikes expected to continue into the fall, the mood for many in Hollywood this weekend will shift between joy and unease.“Celebrations are tempered,” Moses said. “But we still need a healthy business on the far side of this.”Even those cheering the success of “Barbenheimer” fear this weekend’s box-office sugar high might be short-lived. There are no other “Barbie”-level blockbusters on the release calendar until “Dune: Part Two” on Nov. 3, and even that sci-fi sequel could be delayed until next year if the actors’ strike persists, since stars like Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya and Austin Butler would be forbidden to take part in the film’s global press tour.Already, some upcoming films have had their release plans modified as a result of the SAG-AFTRA strike. The Helen Mirren drama “White Bird” and A24’s Julio Torres comedy “Problemista” were supposed to launch in August and are now without an official release date, while “Challengers,” a tennis romance starring Zendaya, on Friday abdicated its prestigious slot as the opening-night title at the Venice Film Festival, which begins Aug. 30. That film, like the Emma Stone comedy “Poor Things,” had been set for theatrical release in September in order to capitalize on a starry press push at Venice. Now “Challengers” has moved to April 2024, according to Deadline.Venice and the Toronto International Film Festival will announce their full lineups next week, and though those slates have the chance to build on the movie-loving momentum offered by “Barbenheimer” weekend, many wonder if they’ll be lacking the starry prestige titles studios normally send there. “If ‘Oppenheimer’ were a fall movie and I was taking it to Toronto, I think we’d probably at this point have decided not to take it,” said that film’s awards strategist, Tony Angelotti, citing the cost of reserving travel and lodging for the cast and makers of a major movie: “Would they refund your money if the strike continues?”While Hollywood braces itself for the next strike-related shoe to drop, Scott Sanders is feeling an unwelcome case of déjà vu. As one of the producers of a new movie-musical adaptation of “The Color Purple,” Sanders has spent months poring over a meticulous release strategy for the Fantasia Barrino-led film, due in theaters on Christmas Day. But all of that hard work could be dashed if Warner Bros. delays the movie, as it did three years ago with another Sanders-produced musical: “In the Heights” was pushed a full year to June 2021 because of the pandemic, and then released simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max.Sanders said the studio has assured him that, so far, no discussions have been had about bumping “The Color Purple” into 2024. Still, he said, “If the other big tentpole holiday movies or awards-bait films start to shift, frankly, I’m going to be nervous.” He added, “The optimist in me thinks we have six or seven more weeks before we have to start taking Pepto Bismol.”The hype around “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” could rekindle a love for moviegoing, Sanders said, but there might be few titles left to capitalize on it. “Are we going to keep the momentum going from this weekend?” he said. “Or are we going to suddenly pull the emergency stop in the next month or two and go back to square one again?”If that cord is pulled, it will have a significant ripple effect. Theaters that are barely back from the brink since the pandemic would be tested once again, while the films that were already dated for 2024 might be forced to free up space. And without the usual influx of year-end prestige films, this year’s awards season could look very different — and, in another way, all-too-familiar.“Worst-case scenario, every studio on the planet decides to move their fourth-quarter movies into next year,” Sanders mused. “Suddenly, the last contenders for awards are ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer.’ Then what happens?” More

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      In Hollywood Strike, Actors and Studios Are ‘Far Apart’ on Key Issues

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      The actors’ union and the organization that bargains on behalf of the studios traded statements underscoring how much work needs to be done to reach an agreement.As tens of thousands of actors go into their fifth day of a strike versus the Hollywood studios, the two sides have shown no signs of returning to the bargaining table — and are even exchanging barbed messages that underscore how far apart they are.Late Monday, leadership of SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, sent members a 12-page memo laying out its demands and the studios’ counterproposals. They “remain far apart on the most critical issues that affect the very survival of our profession,” the note said.“We marched ahead because they intentionally dragged their feet,” it continued.The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the organization that bargains on behalf of the studios, answered with a note to the news media arguing that the message from the union “deliberately distorts” the offers it had made.“A strike is not the outcome we wanted,” the alliance said. “For SAG-AFTRA to assert that we have not been responsive to the needs of its membership is disingenuous at best.”Thousands of Hollywood actors went on strike on Friday after failing to reach a new contract with the major studios, including old-line companies like Paramount, Universal and Disney and tech giants like Netflix, Amazon and Apple.The actors joined 11,500 screenwriters who went on strike 78 days ago, the first time both unions had walked out at the same time since 1960. The writers have not returned to the bargaining table with the studios since their negotiations collapsed in early May.SAG-AFTRA’s note said the two sides remained far apart on several key issues, including compensation, guardrails against artificial intelligence, and health care and pension costs.The union’s leadership said it had asked for 11 percent wage increases in the first year of a new contract; the studios came back with an offer of 5 percent, the union said.When it comes to artificial intelligence, the union’s leaders said they had argued for a number of provisions to protect them “when a ‘digital replica’ is made or our performance is changed using A.I.”They said the studio alliance “failed to address many vital concerns, leaving principal performers and background actors vulnerable to having most of their work replaced by digital replicas.”The studios said that the union’s note to its members “fails to include the proposals offered verbally” during negotiations, and that its overall package was worth more than $1 billion in wage increases, improvements on residuals (a type of royalty) and health care contributions.Regarding artificial intelligence, the studios said they had offered a “groundbreaking proposal, which protects performers’ digital likenesses, including a requirement for performer’s consent for the creation and use of digital replicas or for digital alterations of a performance.”Union leadership sent out a chart laying out each proposal and the studios’ response. Over more than two dozen proposals, the studio response amounted to one word, according to the union: “Rejected.”“So who’s making the T-Shirt that says ‘Rejected’?” the actress Senta Moses posted on Twitter.“This is why we’re on strike,” the union note said. “The A.M.P.T.P. thinks we will relent, but the will of our membership has never been stronger. We have the resolve and unity needed to defend our rights.” More

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      Hollywood Strikes: Labor Day Looms as Crisis Point

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      Ongoing strikes could disrupt the entertainment industry in fundamental ways, putting the 2024 box office and the fall broadcast lineup in jeopardy.In May, when 11,500 movie and television writers went on strike, Hollywood companies like Netflix, NBCUniversal and Disney reacted with what amounted to a shrug. The walkout wasn’t great, but executives had expected it for months. They could ride it out.The angry response from Hollywood’s corporate ranks when actors went out on Friday was dramatically different. What began as an inconvenience has become a crisis.For a start, the actors’ union is much more powerful than the writers’ guild, with a membership of about 160,000 that includes world-famous celebrities studied in the art of delivering messages to captivated audiences. The film and TV scripts that studios had banked in case of a writers’ strike have been suddenly rendered inert, deprived of actors to bring them to life. Numerous big-budget movies that had been shooting had to shut down immediately, including “Twisters,” “Venom 3,” “Deadpool 3” and “Gladiator 2.”In interviews, three studio chairs who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the labor situation, said Hollywood’s content factories could sit idle for little more than a month — roughly until Labor Day — until there would be a serious impact on the release calendar for 2024, particularly for movies. A work stoppage that stretches into September could force studios to delay big projects for next year by six months, making 2024 resemble the ghost town of recent memory set off by the Covid-19 pandemic.Studios had just gotten the release schedule looking normal again, with one big movie following another. Another significant lull in offerings may be devastating for theaters. This year’s box office has already been underwhelming and, with striking actors barred from publicity efforts, films scheduled for the second half of 2023 could be affected — especially those with awards aspirations. One of the studio executives on Friday predicted it could imperil at least one of the national cinema chains.Bobbie Bagby Ford, the chief creative officer and executive vice president of B&B Theatres, a midlevel chain with more than 50 locations in 14 states, said the strikes “have impacted the industry at a difficult time.”“The duration of the ongoing strike will play a significant role in its impact on cinemas,” Ms. Bagby Ford said. “If it remains short enough to prevent an overwhelming backlog of movies, the situation can be managed.”Greg Marcus, chief executive of the Marcus Corporation — which owns the fourth-largest theater chain in the country — agreed that the strikes were unnerving but said they were less threatening to the industry than the pandemic.“Depending on the length of time, there could be a gap in a year,” Mr. Marcus said. “But it’s not like being closed for months on end, people debating the value of theatrical, and then big gaps because of production delays.”Labor Day will arrive in a heartbeat, which would seem to prompt studios to break the standstill with the actors sooner rather than later. But there’s a problem: Studio executives were genuinely surprised by the Screen Actors Guild’s reaction to their proposed terms. They felt they had made significant concessions and were stunned by the union’s rhetoric, especially since they were able to amicably negotiate a lucrative new contract in 2020.The proposed terms included increased pay, protections around the audition process and more favorable terms for pension and health contributions. They also offered that dancers receive an on-camera rate for rehearsal days.In particular, the studios — acknowledging in private conversations that they had made a mistake by largely ignoring the writers’ demands for guardrails around artificial intelligence — proposed terms for use of A.I. that their negotiators said would protect actors.But it wasn’t enough to avert a strike. Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the actors’ chief negotiator, said in an interview on Saturday that the studio’s proposal was unreasonable. The artificial intelligence terms jeopardize “the entire field of acting,” Mr. Crabtree-Ireland said, adding that studios also weren’t offering actors revenue participation in streaming.“Those are the core issues,” Mr. Crabtree-Ireland said. “And the fact that the companies won’t move on them reflects a colonial attitude toward the workers who are the entire basis of the existence of their companies.” He said actors want to begin bargaining again.The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which negotiates on behalf of the studios, disputed Mr. Crabtree-Ireland’s characterization of its members’ attitudes, citing terms of its proposal including a “groundbreaking A.I. proposal that protects actors’ digital likenesses.”An empty red carpet for Disney’s premiere of “Haunted Mansion” in Anaheim, Calif., on Saturday.Allison Dinner/EPA, via ShutterstockThe frustration on the other side of the bargaining table was evinced by comments made on Thursday by Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, who said during an interview on CNBC that workers were being “unrealistic.” Pouring gas on the fire was an article on the show business website Deadline that quoted an anonymous studio executive, who threatened to “bleed out” writers until they “start losing their apartments.” The studio alliance said the anonymous executive did not speak for its members.Though some executives see a brief stoppage as an opportunity to slash costs, a long-term shutdown has the potential to cause havoc in an entertainment industry already buffeted by the rise of streaming and struggles at the box office.“While media execs try to spin the dual strikes as a positive as production spending stops, investors are far more concerned that this will be a long strike that hurts the performance of already completed movies and TV series,” said Rich Greenfield, an analyst at the research firm LightShed Partners.If the twin strikes drag on for just one or two months, companies will probably seize on the shutdown as an opportunity to save cash that they otherwise would have been spending on preproduction — the work done before shooting starts — and bidding on scripts, said Michael Nathanson, an analyst at SVB MoffettNathanson who focuses on the media and entertainment industries. Some of those costs will be incurred later anyway, he noted.They can also take a second look at the shows and films they have in the pipeline, pruning ones that are too costly, Mr. Nathanson said. He compared a brief strike to a halftime break for a losing team that needs to draw up a new strategy.The strike also threatens lucrative, long-term deals struck by media companies during the streaming boom, when they were willing to shell out astounding sums to lure creators like Shonda Rhimes, Ryan Murphy and J.J. Abrams. Some long-term deals have force majeure clauses, which take effect on the 60th or 90th day of a strike, allowing the studios to terminate their contracts without paying a penalty. Mr. Greenfield said those clauses could theoretically let studios get expensive deals off the books, but invoking them would jeopardize relationships with top talent in the future.If actors aren’t back to work by the fall, it will hurt network television, which needs them for new shows coveted by advertisers, Mr. Nathanson said. He added that traditional media companies based in the United States are at a disadvantage compared with Netflix, the dominant streaming company, which can take advantage of its production facilities around the world.“It’s like if the United Auto Workers go on strike, and all of a sudden you see more cars from Japan and Germany on the road,” Mr. Nathanson said.Publicly, studio executives are urging Hollywood to get back to work. Mr. Iger said last week in an interview from the annual Sun Valley conference for business titans that the strike would have a “very damaging” effect on the entertainment industry.There’s little indication, however, that a deal is close.The negotiating parties have all said they want to reach a fair agreement, placing the blame for the standstill on the other side. But they all acknowledge privately that if Hollywood doesn’t thaw out in time, everyone will get frostbite.”Making nothing as a cost-saving strategy is foolish with the fall TV season rapidly approaching and advertisers and consumers expecting new programming,” said Ellen Stutzman, the chief negotiator for the Writers Guild of America. More

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      Striking Actors Join Writers on Picket Lines in LA and NYC

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      In Los Angeles and New York, actors and screenwriters braved the heat to admonish the major studios and demand a new deal.It was 10 a.m., adoring union members had already more or less mobbed their president, Fran Drescher, and the crowd was growing by the minute.Outside Netflix offices in Hollywood, a festive, buoyant mood had taken over the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue. It was a workers’ strike, to be sure. But as smiling protesters eagerly joined in chants and high-fived their picket signs, it felt a little like a summer Friday street party. One with a few famous guests.“We’re told that we should just be so grateful to get to do what we love to do — but not being compensated, not being protected while they are profiting off of our work,” said Amanda Crew from HBO’s “Silicon Valley,” who walked the picket line with Dustin Milligan from “Schitt’s Creek.”“That’s the myth of the actor: You’re doing art so you should just be so grateful because you’re living your dream. Why? Do we do that to doctors? We bring so much joy to people by entertaining them,” Crew added.It was the first of what could be many days of marching for actors, who picketed at locations across the country. They chanted, “Actors and writers unite!” as they marched along a short block in Times Square where Paramount conducts business; they passed out bottles of cold water and cans of La Croix outside 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan; and they bounced their picket signs to the sounds of Jay-Z’s “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” as it blared from a speaker in Hollywood.A day earlier, the Hollywood actors’ union, known as SAG-AFTRA, approved a strike for the first time in 43 years, joining forces with writers, who walked out in May.“There’s a renewed sense of excitement and solidarity,” said Alicia Carroll, a strike captain for the Writers Guild of America. “Writers have been out here for upwards of 70 days. It’s been a while and it’s hot. People are tired. So this is a confidence boost that we’re not alone in the industry in terms of issues.”The actors Bill Irwin and Susan Sarandon picketed in New York on Friday.Andres Kudacki for The New York TimesThe actors and writers have been unable to agree to new contracts with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents major studios and streamers. Pay is a central issue, but the negotiations around compensation have been complicated by the emergence of streaming services and the rise of artificial intelligence.Actors, including Ms. Drescher, the president of their union, have cast the moment as an inflection point, arguing that the entire business model for the $134 billion American movie and television business has changed. They say their new contract needs to account for those changes with various guardrails and protections, including increased residual payments (a type of royalty) from streaming services. They are also worried about how A.I. could be used to replicate their work: scripts in the case of writers and digital replicas of their likenesses for actors.Hollywood companies have insisted that they worked in good faith to reach a reasonable deal at what has also been a difficult time for an industry that has been upended by streaming and is still dealing with the lingering effects of the pandemic.“The union has regrettably chosen a path that will lead to financial hardship for countless thousands of people who depend on the industry,” the studio alliance said in a statement after SAG-AFTRA announced the strike.On Friday, writers said they were heartened to be joined on the picket lines by actors, many of whom have been marching with them for months in the black-and-yellow T-shirts that have become something of a uniform. It is the first time since 1960 that actors and screenwriters have been on strike at the same time.WGA leaders have shared picket line advice: Bring plenty of sunscreen and set a timer to reapply, watch out for traffic. But some actors were already veterans.The actor Greg Germann being interviewed at Netflix’s office in Los Angeles on Friday.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York Times“I have not been to a picket without SAG-AFTRA members there. Sometimes they have even outnumbered us here in the east,” said Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, a vice president of the Writers Guild of America, East. “They have been our stalwart supporters and comrades, and we intend to reciprocate.”“Suddenly,” she added, “the sleeping giant has awakened.”Indeed, some of the union’s most prominent members took to the streets Friday and drew notice as the afternoon wore on. Jason Sudeikis showed up at 30 Rock; Susan Sarandon went to the Flatiron neighborhood, where picketers targeted Warner Bros. Discovery; and Sean Astin marched outside the Netflix offices in Los Angeles.“Our careers have been turned into gig work,” Mr. Astin said over a chorus of frenetic honks of support from passing cars. “It’s not just that we’re not going to take it anymore — we actually can’t take it anymore.”An animated Ms. Drescher had arrived at the same location earlier in the day and was met with an exuberant crowd that wrapped itself around her.“This strike and this negotiation is going to impact everybody, and if we don’t take control of this situation from these greedy megalomaniacs, we are all going to be in threat of losing our livelihoods,” Ms. Drescher said.“I’m not really here for me as much as the 99.9 percent of the membership who are working people who are just trying to make a living to put food on the table, pay rent and get their kids off to school,” she added. “They are the ones that are being squeezed out of their livelihood, and it’s just pathetic.”Shara Ashley Zeiger, an actor, brought her 2-year-old, Lily, to the picket in front of NBC’s offices in New York. A sign protruded from her daughter’s stroller. Lily played with her food — and a tambourine.“The effects of this deal directly affect my daughter and my family,” Ms. Zeiger said.She added: “I had had a role on a project that was on a streamer, and their deal was they didn’t have to pay me residuals for two years. And it was in the middle of the pandemic.”Thousands of miles west in Los Angeles, Evan Shafran, an actor who had taken it upon himself to put together an hourslong playlist for the strike, wondered whether he might eventually need to apply for Medi-Cal, the state’s medical assistance program. He was able to string together enough work to pay for health insurance this year, but he could not be sure how things would pan out in the future.And last week, Mr. Shafran said, his car was stolen. But he took an Uber from his home in the San Fernando Valley to the Netflix offices anyway.“I spent $100 to come protest today even though I’m out of work,” he said. “I need to be out here.” More

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      Fran Drescher Takes Center Stage as the Actors’ Union Leader

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      Fran Drescher, who became a household name for her role on a 1990s sitcom, is now president of the union going on strike.The stage was different, and so was the tone. But the voice was unmistakable.Fran Drescher, the owner of a distinctly nasal, Queens-inflected accent, made her name in Hollywood for her starring role in the sitcom “The Nanny.” On Thursday, she appeared before dozens of cameras as the president of the actors’ union that voted unanimously earlier in the day to go on strike, delivering a fiery argument depicting the stakes of the decision.“The eyes of the world and particularly the eyes of labor are upon us,” Ms. Drescher said. “What happens to us is important. What’s happening to us is happening across all fields of labor.”She shook her fists in indignation. “I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us!” she continued. “It is disgusting. Shame on them!”Ms. Drescher is the latest in a long line of familiar faces — Ronald Reagan, Patty Duke and Charlton Heston among them — to run SAG-AFTRA, the union that represents tens of thousands of screen actors. But it amounts to a surprising plot twist in her long career.As the Thursday news conference made clear, she is now a leading face of a resurgent labor movement nationally. How she handles it in the coming weeks, and possibly, months could help determine the fate of 160,000 actors.The actors’ strike, which will go into effect on Friday, marks a crisis point for Hollywood, which has already been rocked in recent years by the pandemic and sweeping technological shifts with the rise of streaming and the steady decline of cable television and box office returns. Hollywood writers have been on strike for months, and with actors now joining them — the first time since 1960 that both are on strike at the same time — the industry will essentially grind to a halt.Ms. Drescher, 65, has spent decades acting in Hollywood, both in television and film. Since her starring role on “The Nanny” in the 1990s, by far her most prominent role, she has appeared sporadically in television and feature films. She most recently starred in a short-lived sitcom for NBC called “Indebted,” which lasted 12 episodes before it was canceled in 2020.She has long expressed concerns about corporate greed, captioning photos with slogans like “STOP CAPITALIST GREED NOW.” It was enough for New York Magazine to put a headline on a 2017 blog post, “Your New Favorite Anti-Capitalist Icon Is Fran Drescher.”A few years later, in 2021, Ms. Drescher won election to the guild presidency in a deeply contested race versus the actor Matthew Modine. They represented different factions: Ms. Drescher for the establishment Unite for Strength Party, and Mr. Modine for an upstart group, Membership First.The race become so bitter that Mr. Modine accused Ms. Drescher of spreading falsehoods about him and reportedly said, “I’m ashamed of Fran Drescher, I’m disappointed. But she’ll be judged by the people in the world after she’s gone, or by whatever God she worships.”Unlike the screenwriters, who have gone on strike many times over the decades and historically been unified, actors have been known more for their intramural squabbling. Hollywood had been bracing for a writers strike since the beginning of the year — but few senior executives and producers were prepared for the actors to have the resolve to go through with it.When Ms. Drescher came into power she vowed to bring the union together and to bring an end to the “dysfunctional division in this union.”When the actors agreed to a strike authorization, it was with 97.9 percent of the vote — a stunning figure that even eclipsed the writers’ significant strike authorization. Last month, Membership First, the opposition party, endorsed Ms. Drescher’s re-election bid.Ms. Drescher on a picket line with members of the writers’ union in Los Angeles in May.Chris Pizzello/Associated PressStill, some of her public statements and actions in recent weeks have confounded many actors.In late June, days before the actors’ contract was set to expire, Ms. Drescher and the union’s lead negotiator, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, released a video that struck many viewers as surprisingly upbeat given the high stakes of the negotiations.“I just want to assure you that we are having extremely productive negotiations that are laser-focused on all the crucial issues that you told us are most important to you,” she said, wearing a military jacket. “We are standing strong, and we’re going to achieve a seminal deal!”Just days later, more than 1,000 actors, including Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lawrence, signed a letter expressing concerns to union leadership that they were not taking into account their willingness to strike. “We hope that, on our behalf, you will meet that moment and not miss it,” the letter said.Ms. Drescher — curiously, given her position — added her signature to the letter.On Monday, days before the actors’ contract was set to expire, Ms. Drescher drew attention on another front: She was attending a couture Dolce & Gabbana fashion show in Puglia, Italy, where she posed for photos with Kim Kardashian. To her 362 million Instagram followers, Ms. Kardashian said of Ms. Drescher: “To my fashion icon! Always on my mood board! I seriously love this woman!”On Monday, Kim Kardashian posted this photo with Ms. Drescher at the Dolce & Gabbana fashion show in Puglia, Italy.Kim Kardashian, via InstagramThe backlash was quick and swift. The “General Hospital” actress Nancy Lee Grahn questioned if the photo was a joke. “I’m hoping this is not true. It can’t be. No one could be this stupid,” she wrote on Twitter.In a statement, a spokeswoman for the actors’ union said that Ms. Drescher was working as a “brand ambassador” for Dolce and Gabbana, and that the commitment was “fully known to the negotiating committee.” Mr. Crabtree-Ireland called criticism of Ms. Drescher’s appearance at the fashion show “outrageous” and “despicable.”Ms. Drescher addressed the issue at the news conference on Thursday. “It was absolute work,” she said, adding that she continued to communicate with negotiators from abroad. “I was in hair and makeup three hours a day, walking in heels on cobblestones. Doing things like that, which is work. Not fun.”While Mr. Crabtree-Ireland spoke at the news conference from a teleprompter, Ms. Drescher spoke off the cuff.“Wake up and smell the coffee,” she said of the studios. “We demand respect! You cannot exist without us!”“They stand on the wrong side of history at this very moment,” she continued, pointing her finger forcefully toward the camera banks. “We stand in solidarity in unprecedented unity. Our union, our sister unions, and the unions around the world, are standing by us.” More

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      The SAG-AFTRA Union Could Strike in Hollywood This Week

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      The News: Actors could join writers on the picket lines.The actors may soon be joining Hollywood screenwriters on the picket lines if their union, SAG-AFTRA, and the major studios fail to reach a deal by midnight on Wednesday. The two sides are haggling over the same issues that are front and center for the Writers Guild of America: higher wages, increased residual payments (a type of royalty) and significant guardrails around the use of artificial intelligence.Should the actors go on strike, it will be the first time in 63 years that both the actors and the writers are out at the same time over a contract dispute.Members of the Writers Guild of America picketing in Burbank, Calif.Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWhy It Matters: A second strike could shut Hollywood down completely.Hollywood is already 80 percent shut down since the writers went on strike on May 2. While some television shows and movies continued filming, the writers were surprisingly effective in shutting down shows in production. If the actors join them on the picket lines, productions will be closed completely, a reality that will have a significant effect on the local economies in Los Angeles and other filming locales like Atlanta and New York City. During the last writers’ strike 15 years ago, the Los Angeles economy lost an estimated $2.1 billion.The effects of a dual strike would also soon be coming to your television, with network shows going into reruns and a likely proliferation of reality television. Also, actors would no longer be able to promote new films, a reality that already exists to a large degree because the writers’ strike forced the late-night shows to go dark.Background: Streaming and A.I. bring change.Not since Ronald Reagan was the president of the Screen Actors Guild have the writers and actors been on strike at the same time. Back then, the actors were fighting over residuals paid for licensing films for television. Today, the actors want to ensure higher wages and better residuals in an entertainment landscape in which studios are struggling to turn a profit after investing billions of dollars in streaming. The actors are also concerned about how their likenesses could be used with the advent of artificial intelligence.Guild members authorized the strike in early June, with 97.9 percent of members voting yes. Then on June 24, Fran Drescher, the president of SAG-AFTRA, and Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the national executive director of the guild, informed its membership that they “remained optimistic” about the talks. They added that the negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the trade association negotiating for the studios, had been “extremely productive.”A video prompted a group of more than 1,000 actors, including Ms. Drescher, to sign a letter that urged the union’s leadership to not settle for a lesser deal. “We are prepared to strike,” the letter said.On June 30, the union announced that it had extended its contract until Wednesday while the sides continued to talk.What’s Next: Could a deal still happen?After the parties negotiated all weekend, it remained unclear whether they were any closer to a resolution. Should they fail to make an agreement by midnight Pacific time on Wednesday, some 160,000 SAG-AFTRA members will be poised to join the 11,000 writers already on the picket line. More