Hollywood actors to resume negotiations with studios next week, as protracted writers strike ends
MARK KENNEDY and ANDREW DALTON, Associated Press and Vivian Chow
Striking writers and actors picket outside Paramount studios in Los Angeles on Friday, July 14, 2023. This marks the first day actors formally joined the picket lines, more than two months after screenwriters began striking in their bid to get better pay and working conditions. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Union leaders representing striking actors will be heading back to the negotiation table with studio representatives and streamers in an announcement on Wednesday.
In a statement from SAG-AFTRA, negotiators said meetings with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers will resume on Monday, Oct. 2.
This meeting would mark the first time negotiating sides have met since actors walked out on July 14, marking 76 days into the strike.
The indication to resume talks comes on the heels of the Writers Guild of America striking a deal with major studio heads and streamers on Sept. 24 with the strike coming to an official end on Wednesday morning.
The WGA deal marked the end of a 146-day strike that began on May 2. When actors also joined writers on the picket lines, the move marked the first time in over 60 years that both unions had been on strike at the same time. The move effectively shut down the entertainment industry.
Striking writers and actors picket outside Paramount studios in Los Angeles on Friday, July 14, 2023. This marks the first day actors formally joined the picket lines, more than two months after screenwriters began striking in their bid to get better pay and working conditions. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Annette Bening walks on a picket line outside Netflix studios on Tuesday, July 25, 2023, in Los Angeles. The actors strike comes more than two months after screenwriters began striking in their bid to get better pay and working conditions. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
FILE – SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher, left, and SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland speak during a press conference announcing a strike by The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists on July, 13, 2023, in Los Angeles. This marks the first time since 1960 that actors and writers will picket film and television productions at the same time. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)
Actor Bryan Cranston speaks during the SAG-AFTRA “Rock the City for a Fair Contract” rally in Times Square on Tuesday, July 25, 2023, in New York. Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
Adam Shapiro poses on a picket line outside Netflix studios on Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023, in Los Angeles. The actors strike comes more than two months after screenwriters began striking in their bid to get better pay and working conditions. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)
FILE – Meredith Stiehm, left, president of Writers Guild of America West, and Fran Drescher, president of SAG-AFTRA, take part in a rally by striking writers outside Paramount Pictures studio in Los Angeles on May 8, 2023. Hollywood actors may be on the verge of joining screenwriters in what would be the first two-union strike in the industry in more than six decades. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)
Kate Flannery appears on a picket line outside Paramount studios on Wednesday, July 26, 2023, in Los Angeles. The actors strike comes more than two months after screenwriters began striking in their bid to get better pay and working conditions. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Kal Penn, center, and John Cho, right, speak during a rally outside Paramount Pictures Studio on Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023, in Los Angeles. The film and television industries remain paralyzed by Hollywood’s dual actors and screenwriters strikes. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)
Jack Black walks on a picket line outside Paramount studios on Monday, July 24, 2023, in Los Angeles. The actors strike comes more than two months after screenwriters began striking in their bid to get better pay and working conditions. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Hollywood actors, writers and their supporters walk the picket line July 18, 2023 outside Disney Studios, in Burbank. (ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)
Picketers participate in a rally outside Paramount Pictures Studio on Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023, in Los Angeles. The film and television industries remain paralyzed by Hollywood’s dual actors and screenwriters strikes. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)
SAG-AFTRA member James Hutson carries a picket sign outside Paramount studios on Wednesday, July 19, 2023, in Los Angeles. The actors strike comes more than two months after screenwriters began striking in their bid to get better pay and working conditions. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
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The actors guild said several studio executives will attend, much as they did during marathon sessions last week that helped bring the nearly five-month writers strike to an end.
Monday is the same day that network late-night hosts will return to the air.
Bill Maher led the charge back to work by announcing early Wednesday that his HBO show “Real Time with Bill Maher” would be back on the air Friday. By mid-morning, the hosts of NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” and “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on CBS had announced they’d also return, all by Monday. “Last Week Tonight” with John Oliver was slated to return to the air Sunday.
Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” which had been using guest hosts when the strike hit, announced Wednesday that it would return Oct. 16 “with an all-star roster of guest hosts for the remainder of 2023.” The plans for “Saturday Night Live” were not immediately clear.
The strikes have had a “catastrophic” impact on late-night television viewing, according to the research firm Samba TV. Without Colbert, Fallon and Kimmel proving fresh, topical material, the broadcast networks have seen late-night viewership declines of between 40% and 50%, Ashwin Navin, Samba TV co-founder. “It remains to be seen how late night will rebound to its previous relevance,” he said.
FILE – Actors and comedians Tina Fey, center, and Fred Armisen, right, join striking members of the Writers Guild of America on the picket line during a rally outside Silvercup Studios, Tuesday May 9, 2023, in New York. Unionized Hollywood actors on the verge of a strike have agreed to allow a last-minute intervention from federal mediators but say they doubt a deal will be reached by a negotiation deadline late Wednesday, July 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)
Sarah Silverman walks on a picket line outside Netflix studios on Wednesday, July 26, 2023, in Los Angeles. The actors strike comes more than two months after screenwriters began striking in their bid to get better pay and working conditions. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
SAG-AFTRA member Newt Kane walks on a picket line outside Fox studios on Monday, Aug. 14, 2023, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Striking Hotel workers from Unite Here Local 11 join the picketing actors of SAG-AFTRA, and writers of the WGA, outside Netflix studios on July 21, 2023, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)
Husband and wife actors Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick are part of the picket line outside NBCUniversal at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York on Tuesday, July 18, 2023. Solidarity and stamina are themes on picket lines in New York as striking actors and writers are bracing for a long standoff with studios. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)
In Sacramento, SAG-AFTRA members picketed outside the front steps of the California State Capitol. (KTLA)
Actor Sarah Paulson joins a picket line outside Netflix studios on Tuesday, July 25, 2023, in Los Angeles. The actors strike comes more than two months after screenwriters began striking in their bid to get better pay and working conditions. (AP Photo/Mya Vinnett)
Actor Holland Taylor walks on a picket line outside Netflix studios on Wednesday, July 26, 2023, in Los Angeles. The actors strike comes more than two months after screenwriters began striking in their bid to get better pay and working conditions. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Actors Alan Ruck, left, and Justine Lupe, members of the cast of “Succession,” carry picket signs outside Warner Bros. studios on Tuesday, July 18, 2023, in Burbank, Calif. The actors strike comes more than two months after screenwriters began striking in their bid to get better pay and working conditions and have clear guidelines around the use of AI in film and television productions. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Striking writers and actors chant as they walk a picket line, Monday, July 17, 2023, in New York. Three years after the pandemic brought Hollywood to a standstill, the film and TV industry has again ground to a halt. This time, though, the industry is engaged in a bitter battle over the how streaming — after advancing rapidly during the pandemic — has upended the economics of entertainment. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Actor Joely Fisher, from left, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher and Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA national executive director and chief negotiator, take part in a rally by striking writers and actors outside Netflix studio in Los Angeles on Friday, July 14, 2023. This marks the first day actors formally joined the picket lines, more than two months after screenwriters began striking in their bid to get better pay and working conditions. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Director of Photography Jac Cheairs and his son, actor Wyatt Cheairs, 11, take part in a rally by striking writers and actors outside Netflix studio in Los Angeles on Friday, July 14, 2023. This marks the first day actors formally joined the picket lines, more than two months after screenwriters began striking in their bid to get better pay and working conditions. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Aubrey Plaza gestures a peace sign as she pickets outside Netflix studios on Thursday, July 20, 2023, in Los Angeles. The actors strike comes more than two months after screenwriters began striking in their bid to get better pay and working conditions. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
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Fallon, Meyers, Kimmel, Colbert and Oliver spent the latter part of the strike teaming up for a popular podcast called “Strike Force Five” — named after their personal text chain and with all proceeds benefiting their out-of-work writers. On Instagram on Wednesday, they announced “their mission complete.”
Scripted shows will take longer to return, with actors still on strike and no negotiations yet on the horizon.
On Tuesday night, board members from the writers union approved a contract agreement with studios, bringing the industry at least partly back from a historic halt in production that stretched nearly five months.
Maher had delayed returning to his talk show during the ongoing strike by writers and actors, a decision that followed similar pauses by “The Drew Barrymore Show,” “The Talk” and “The Jennifer Hudson Show.”
The three-year agreement with studios, producers and streaming services includes significant wins in the main areas writers had fought for — compensation, length of employment, size of staffs and control of artificial intelligence — matching or nearly equaling what they had sought at the outset of the strike.
The union had sought minimum increases in pay and future residual earnings from shows and will get a raise of between 3.5% and 5% in those areas — more than the studios had initially offered.
The guild also negotiated new residual payments based on the popularity of streaming shows, where writers will get bonuses for being a part of the most popular shows on Netflix, Max and other services, a proposal studios initially rejected. Many writers on picket lines had complained that they weren’t properly paid for helping create heavily watched properties.
On artificial intelligence, the writers got the regulation and control of the emerging technology they had sought. Under the contract, raw, AI-generated storylines will not be regarded as “literary material” — a term in their contracts for scripts and other story forms a screenwriter produces. This means they won’t be competing with computers for screen credits. Nor will AI-generated stories be considered “source” material, their contractual language for the novels, video games or other works that writers may adapt into scripts.
Writers have the right under the deal to use artificial intelligence in their process if the company they are working for agrees and other conditions are met. But companies cannot require a writer to use artificial intelligence.
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Media Writer David Bauder contributed to this report. Dalton reported from Los Angeles.
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For more on the writers and actors strikes, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/hollywood-strikes/
