UPDATED: Studios Give End-of-Day Dedline, SAG-AFTRA Negotiating Committee Reportedly Voting to Approve Deal
It’s been excruciating to see the development of the SAG-AFTRA negotiations to end the four-month strike, but it may be coming to an end soon. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the union’s negotiating committee is considering the studio’s latest offer after a marathon 10-hour session on Tuesday and is expected to take a vote before they send it back to Carol Lombardini and the AMPTP, with one minor adjustment on a generative AI bullet point that they do not expect to be a deal-breaker.
Multiple sources were apparently optimistic that this could be it. That the vote could be the final one before the union recommends the deal to the board, should the AMPTP sign off on it. A deal could be reached as soon as Wednesday.
Whether or not this was SAG-AFTRA messing with the companies, as David Zaslav and Bob Iger were hosting earnings calls on Wednesday, who knows. But both Zaslav and Iger expressed their optimism about a deal being reached soon, with the former saying they’d basically given in on most of the actors’ demands. It should be noted, of course, that the actors disagree on that point.
On the flip side, though, Deadline is saying that chances of an imminent deal are “dim”. It should be noted that Deadline has traditionally been the more conservative trade when it comes to the strike. On that Friday when most people were already popping champagne, they were the only ones saying there were still a lot of bridges left to build between both sides. And though basically both reports are saying the same, that the guild is conferring and they should get back to the studios before end of day, THR says this could be the final call while Deadline says there may be more to discuss.
Whatever the case may be, it seems like most of the issues around AI protections were resolved on Tuesday. It’s unknown what exactly is left on the table.
UPDATE: Per Deadline, the studios have apparently told the guild they expect to hear by 5pm PT today if a deal is happening or not.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
