The union representing Hollywood’s actors has voted to join screenwriters on the picket line – and the walkout could have a multimillion-dollar impact on Utah’s economy.
Chairmen of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Radio and Television Artists, which represents actors working in film and television, voted Thursday to go on strike. Actors are joining the Writers Guild of America, which has been on strike since May 2 against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the major studios and streaming services. The SAG-AFTRA strike comes into effect at midnight on Thursday evening.
If the strike lasts longer, it could affect a dozen film and television productions scheduled to shoot in Utah this summer, said Virginia Pearce, executive director of the Utah Film Commission.
Those dozen productions — ranging from low-budget independent works to an upcoming Marvel film — should bring $63.8 million to Utah’s economy and support about 3,000 jobs, Pearce said.
“It’s all there, of course writers and actors, but also directors and producers – and they’re working producers,” Pearce said. “It’s affecting everyone on the work crew, right down to safety teams, transport companies and suppliers who supply everything from lamps to toilet bowls.” These are people’s livelihoods.”
According to Pearce, the only production currently filming in Utah was Thursday’s fourth season of “The Chosen,” a television series about the life of Jesus Christ. The series is shot at LDS Motion Picture Studio in Goshen, south of Provo.
Filming on The Chosen was set to continue through Thursday night, Pearce said. “We don’t know yet when the strike will officially start,” Pearce said. A spokesman for The CW, which recently picked up “The Chosen,” did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
For the other dozen productions, Pearce said some will begin prep work for filming in August – so if contract negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP are completed quickly, that filming would not be affected.
“I hope that both sides come together and find an agreement that they can live with,” Pearce said.
The decision to strike came Thursday after negotiations for a new contract between the union and the producers’ alliance collapsed, the Associated Press reported.
“A strike is a last resort,” SAG-AFTRA chief executive Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said at a news conference Thursday in Los Angeles.
Crabtree-Ireland said union leaders voted unanimously for the walkout to begin at midnight, hours after their contract expired and talks with AMPTP, which represents employers including Disney, Netflix, Amazon and others, broke down.
Outside Netflix’s Hollywood offices, striking writers chanted “Pay your actors!” immediately after the strike was announced.
It’s the first strike for film and television show actors since 1980. And it’s the first time two major Hollywood unions have gone on strike at the same time since 1960, when Ronald Reagan was President of the Actors’ Association.
“Employers make Wall Street and greed their priority while forgetting about the key contributors who make the machine run,” said former “The Nanny” star and SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher in an impassioned speech delivered by the Union leaders in the hall applauded . “It’s disgusting. Shame on them. They’re on the wrong side of history.”
SAG-AFTRA leaders have informed their members that a strike will mean withdrawing from promotional activities for current projects – including appearing at premieres or at events like Comic-Con International in San Diego. According to Hollywood trade publication Variety, most major studios will not have their usual presence at the Comic-Con convention floor or in Hall H, where many blockbuster films are shown each July.
The strike shouldn’t impact Salt Lake City’s comic book convention, FanX said, co-founder Dan Farr said.
“So the celebrities that come to FanX aren’t promoting new movies [we] Don’t expect problems related to a strike,” Farr said through a spokesman on Wednesday.
FanX will be held September 21-23 at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City and more than 80 actors and voice actors have been announced as attendees.
With a hiatus looming, the London premiere of Christopher Nolan’s film “Oppenheimer” was brought forward an hour to allow the cast to walk the red carpet ahead of the SAG board announcement.
The looming strike also cast a shadow over the upcoming 75th Emmy Awards, the nominations for which were announced a day earlier.
Disney boss Bob Iger warned on Thursday that an actors’ strike would have “very damaging effects on the entire industry”.
“This is the worst time on earth for this disruption to increase,” Iger said in an appearance on CNBC. “There is a certain expectation [SAG-AFTRA and the WGA] That’s just not realistic.”
A nearly two-week contract extension and negotiations only increased animosity between the two groups. Drescher said the extension made us “feel like we’ve been duped, maybe just to give the studios an opportunity to promote their summer films for another 12 days.”
Before talks began on June 7, the 65,000 actors who cast their ballots voted overwhelmingly by union leaders to send them on strike, as the Writers Guild of America did when their contract expired more than two years ago months expired.
As the original end-June deadline neared, more than 1,000 union members, including Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence and Bob Odenkirk, put their names in a letter signaling to leaders their willingness to strike.
Negotiations have focused on base and residual salaries, which stakeholders say inflation and the streaming ecosystem have eroded, welfare benefits and the threat of unregulated use of artificial intelligence.
“At a time when streaming, AI and digital were so pervasive, it gutted the industry we once knew,” Drescher said. “When I was shooting ‘The Nanny,’ everyone was part of the crew. Now it’s a vacuum.”
The AMPTP said it was disappointed with the collapse.
“This is the union’s decision, not ours. In doing so, she has turned down our offers of historic pay and residual increases, significantly higher pension and health insurance caps, audition protections, shortened series option periods, a groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors’ digital likenesses, and much more.” group said in a statement.
Rather than negotiate further, she added, “SAG-AFTRA has put us on a course that will exacerbate financial hardship for thousands who depend on the industry for their livelihoods.”
SAG-AFTRA represents more than 160,000 film actors, broadcast journalists, announcers, hosts and stunt performers. The strike will affect only the union’s 65,000 television and film production actors, who voted overwhelmingly to authorize their leaders to call a strike before talks begin on June 7. Broadway actors said in a statement that they “stand in solidarity” with SAG-AFTRA workers.
The 11,500 members of the Writers Guild of America have been on strike since their own talks broke down and their contract expired on May 2nd. The disruption has shown no signs of resolution, no negotiations are planned.
This strike resulted in the immediate closure of late-night talk shows and Saturday Night Live, and several scripted shows, including Stranger Things on Netflix, Hacks on Max, and Family Guy on Fox, were also affected, either in their writers’ rooms or paused their production. Many more will surely follow after artists are also pulled.
The Associated Press contributed to this story. This is an evolving story.
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