Many television and movie productions were put on hold in the face of the actors’ strike, but those days will soon be behind us. After four months of tense negotiations, SAG-AFTRA finally reached a tentative agreement with Hollywood studios to end the actors’ strike.
SAG-AFTRA announced the amazing news in a statement to its 160,000 members, ranging from background extras to A-list stars, saying they’ve “achieved a deal of extraordinary scope”, valued at over one billion dollars over three years.
The new deal will cover minimum compensation increases, extensive consent and compensation protections in the use of artificial intelligence, streaming participation bonuses, pension and health cap increases, and compensation increases for background performers.
The AMPTP described this deal as the “biggest contract-on-contract gains in the history of the union”, adding they’re “pleased to have reached a tentative agreement and look forward to the industry resuming the work of telling great stories.”
The new deal will have to be reviewed by the SAG-AFTRA National Board and ratified before actors can officially go back to work. Hollywood will be back to business pretty soon, but the impact of the SAG-AFTRA strike will linger for quite some time, and it reportedly cost the California economy more than $6.5 billion over the course of six months, along with the WGA strike, which concluded in late September.
