Writers picket in front of Netflix on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California, on May 2, 2023, as the Writers Guild of America (WGA) goes on strike.
FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images
For the first time since 1960, Hollywood actors and writers could be on strike at the same time.Both unions striking at the same time could force a quick resolution with the Hollywood studios.But some industry watchers think a combined strike will drag out the stoppage much longer.
For the first time in 63 years, Hollywood is facing the possibility of two simultaneous guild strikes. Writers walked out 10 weeks ago, and actors are set to hit their own (already extended) deadline on July 12 to negotiate a new contract with studios.
The Writers Guild of America action has largely shut down most film and TV production. If the actors union, SAG-AFTRA, hits the picket lines, it would cause an even deeper disruption to the entertainment industry.
SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee voted unanimously to recommend to a strike to its national board and is expected to meet with the board today to vote to strike.
“Everybody’s really nervous because there’s going to be no cash flow — they won’t be making anything,” a top talent agent said.
Some observers see a combined strike hastening an end to the impasse, while other see it extending the industry’s paralysis.
A quick recap: The WGA and SAG-AFTRA have been unable to reach new deals over wages, the use of artificial intelligence, and other issues with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers — which represents more than 350 studios, networks, and streamers, including Netflix, Disney, and Amazon.
The WGA has been on strike since early May; SAG-AFTRA’s contract extension expired Wednesday night. Like WGA members before them, SAG-AFTRA members voted June 5 overwhelmingly to authorize a strike.
Stakes were high enough with the writers’ strike. The last time they walked out, in 2007-2008, the work stoppage lasted 100 days, causing more than 60 TV shows to shut down and ratings and ad sales to drop. It cost the state of California over $2 billion and over 37,700 jobs.
If the actors join the fight, the logistics and optics of the movement change drastically. But the industry landscape, issues, and labor environment are vastly different now than in the mid-aughts. Here are two ways a broader work stoppage could play out, based on conversations with a handful of industry insiders.
The nightmare scenario
Jonathan Handel, an entertainment lawyer who previously worked for the WGA, believes that if the actors strike alongside the writers, the industry is in for a long slog — if only because of how complex and existential the issues are.
It’s hard to overstate the magnitude of change that’s swept Hollywood since 2008, as Handel sees it. The rise of streaming has upended the way writers and actors are paid. Generative AI, with its potential to write entire scripts and recreate actors, has erupted. The media conglomerates for their part are drowning in debt and struggling to make up for traditional TV declines with streaming dollars.
“There is so much at stake,” Handel told Insider. “I don’t think that filmed entertainment has seen a more rapid change in such a short period of time than since the end of World War II.”
The labor environment broadly has changed, too. The movement is having a moment, as has been evidenced by other unions — from teachers to truck drivers — joining Hollywood writers on the picket line. That kind of moral support will be key to helping the writers and actors stay out longer.
What’s more, on the AMPTP side, the major members include legacy studios, pure-play streamers, and tech companies that aren’t all on the same page, which could get in the way of their ability to move as a unit to end a strike.
While companies like NBCUniversal and Disney still depend on a fresh fall network TV season — which is already under threat — to draw viewers and satisfy advertisers, Netflix would “probably be happy to see fall TV collapse,” Handel said.
The 2007-8 writers’ strike ended after the Directors Guild of America struck its own deal with the AMPTP, providing the framework for a WGA deal. As winter melted into spring, a looming Oscars telecast also provided an incentive to resolve things.
The directors in June came to their own new three-year agreement with the AMPTP, but there are outstanding issues that are unique to writers and actors. Staffing of writers rooms is a key concern for the WGA, while SAG-AFTRA members are more focused on AI, observers say. The Oscars telecast (which has lost a lot of its audience in recent years anyway) is months away, and there’s talk of postponing the Emmys — typically broadcast in September — to November or later.
A combined writers’ and actors’ strike “could well go into the end of the year,” Handel said.
The dream scenario
On the other hand, if SAG-AFTRA joins the WGA on the pickets, it’s also likely the two guilds’ contracts will be negotiated simultaneously — and there will be some efficiencies where there are shared concerns.
The media companies that rely on fall TV ad sales could bring the rest of the AMPTP membership along with them to get the strike resolved.
And having high-profile actors on picket lines, along with the good vibes unions are enjoying these days, will generate buzz and positive PR for the strikers — which in turn will incentivize the media companies to wrap things up, said Paul Hardart, director of the Entertainment, Media and Technology Program at NYU’s Stern School of Business.
Disney CEO Bob Iger, together with Peter Chernin — then News Corp. president and chairman and CEO of Fox — helped break the stalemate to end the strike in 2008. So far, industry stakeholders told Insider, Iger has stayed on the sidelines this time around, but there’s a hope he could swoop in once again.
Iger wasn’t among the Hollywood heavy hitters, including Disney Entertainment co-chairs Alan Bergman and Dana Walden, who joined a call Monday to discuss the idea of federal mediation, according to reports. “I’ve had conversations that lead me to believe he’d not been involved,” Handel said.
“I do think SAG going on strike expedites things,” Hardart said. “I think you’ll see pressure from external forces — whether it’s the governor of California, the president of the United States — moving this along.”
But like most people venturing opinions about Hollywood’s simmering hot labor summer, Hardart concluded with a caveat: “I could be completely wrong.”
“At some point, even the streamers run out of content and the companies just have to make a deal,” Handel said. “The industry just can’t continue struck.”