hollywood strikewatch
Everywhere we've been around the LA Film Festival this week, the chatter du jour is either oversexed studio minions or how folks plan to spend their off-days during the increasingly inevitable-looking SAG strike. The latter conflict came into even sharper relief today in Variety, which published a SAG-AFTRA Bullshit Scorecard (hardly an improvement over our SAG Strike Mad Libs™, but whatever) breaking down the lies, celebrity endorsees and various other spin the unions are wielding in their steel-cage labor war:
As SAG begins its 38th day of negotiations with the majors today, the pro-AFTRA forces have added Alec Baldwin and Kevin Spacey to their list of several hundred endorsers, led by Tom Hanks and Sally Field. ...
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defamer mad libs
Try as we might, there really is no fresh angle to report in the ongoing contract drama between SAG leadership and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers — the saber-rattling fuckers hate each other, and no strike-avoiding resolution is in sight before the current deal's June 30 expiration date. That said, a story is a story, so why not stimulate your interest (and ours) by adding your own fun invective and hyperbole to the mix!
For starters: "The threat of a SAG [NOUN] reached near-[ADJECTIVE] levels this week as the actor's union [PAST-TENSE VERB] continued its acrimonious stand-off with the [PLURAL NOUN] at the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers." Follow the jump for more — the fun (almost) never ends!
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strike two
Happy news
emerged this morning from the deep, dank reaches of the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers headquarters, where it was announced the major studios have come to last-minute terms with AFTRA on a new three-year contract. Conveniently or not, the report comes a few hours before AFTRA's former negotiating partners in the Screen Actors Guild were set to resume their own talks with the majors. And with AFTRA reportedly agreeing to conditions on new-media residuals similar to those accepted by the DGA and WGA during the latter union's strike, SAG has until June 30 to determine if the terms are good enough for itself — or detonate! The! Industry! with another labor stoppage.
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strike two
After a week-long lull in apocalyptic mutterings from all sides of SAG and AFTRA negotiations with the major studios, a couple of new stumbling blocks have appeared en route to a deal. For starters, AFTRA national president Roberta Reardon today sent out
a sobering e-mail to her members, both acknowledging her discussions' ongoing news blackout while giving the rank-and-file plenty to leak to the press. To wit: Reardon writes that even AFTRA, which was expected to breeze to a new contract after SAG very publicly dug in its heels last month, is apparently having a hard time coming to terms with the majors on new media:
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strike two
There's only so much ledge-prancing, saber-rattling, gun-pointing madness a person can get away with spinning in the press, and at a glance, anyway, it appears SAG national executive director
Doug Allen may be faking the labor funk a little
too aggressively. Now that his union's extended (and re-extended) negotiation period with the major studios is over, leaving AFTRA to step in and take everything it's offered no-questions-asked, Allen kvetched to
Variety today that god
dammit — they were
so close! Like, just
a few hours away! No, really. He actually said that:
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In another noisy shot across the studios' collective bow, SAG leadership hinted further at a strike Wednesday by
signing an interim work agreement with indie shingle
The Film Department. The deal would allow nine films in varying stages of development — including the Catherine Zeta-Jones comedy
The Rebound and the Gerard Butler thriller
Law-Abiding Citizen — to continue unaffected in the case of a work stoppage. The WGA applied a similar approach during its own strike, eventually pacting with seemingly every indie in town that didn't have financing and/or distribution deals with major studios. SAG is likely to do the same, having first floated the idea over a month ago and currently in talks with the likes of Lionsgate, The Weinstein Company and other producers. Television isn't covered, however, so look for plenty of reruns should Strike Hell come to pass (again) after June 30. [
Variety]
labor pains
As
noted here Monday, SAG president and all-around industry red-ass
Alan Rosenberg never encountered a paper cut he couldn't pick and peel into a festering scab. A lot of it is the institution's historic dysfunction; less than 90 days from the expiration of its contract with studios, SAG has more factions, infighting and revenue disparities than the Jackson family. Nevertheless, on the second day of negotiations between SAG and producers, Brooks Barnes offers
a revealing portrait of the Man Who Would Bring Hollywood to Its Knees If It Will Get Him in the
New York Times:
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labor pains
While most of the civilized world enjoyed an early-spring weekend about town, SAG president and press warlord Alan Rosenberg practiced his saber-rattling in anticipation of upcoming labor negotiations with the studios. Despite reaching out to AFTRA to rejoin them in talks starting tomorrow, such token detente couldn't mitigate Rosenberg's resistance pledged against everyone from mutinous actors like Kevin Bacon and Charlie Sheen to penny-pinching producers. And at least one high-powered, face-saving source is urging the union to stand down or face certain doom.
How does Rosenberg keep it all straight? The same way we do: One enemy at a time.
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strike two
In what could charitably called a polite preemptive blast against SAG and AFTRA, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers yesterday
issued an open letter affirming its rightful position in the driver's seat of
upcoming negotiations with the recently split actors unions. "Driver's seat" is probably also too kind; perhaps "bending its receivers over a barrel of new media revenues" is more like it:
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strike two
There's nothing inherently sexy about the ongoing labor disputes between producers and writers, producers and directors, producers and actors and whatever other banal kerfuffles you care to conjure. But the SAG/AFTRA square-off pitting actors against producers and themselves is quite a tentpole-ready disaster in the making, setting up a showdown that could torch yet another slate of projects on Hollywood's horizon:
In the wake of Saturday's decision by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists to ditch its longstanding bargaining partnership with SAG on the feature-primetime contract, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers held off Monday on deciding which union it will sit down with first.
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Defamer
