Yes, SAG-AFTRA and the studios are going back to the table on Tuesday to try to end the 100+-day strike—a welcome development that was apparently so abrupt that the union suspended its biennial (virtual) convention on Saturday to accommodate.. But as the window for a deal this year steadily inches shut, what are the prospects?
Not great. As Matt Belloni noted the other day, George Clooney and a group of other A-listers (“high-pros,” in SAG-AFTRA parlance) are pressuring the union but suggesting nonsense—redistributed income, removing the cap on member dues, etcetera—that doesn’t move the needle. Meanwhile, I’m told that the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee is wedded to its per-subscriber fee approach for residuals, a business model that Netflix co-C.E.O. Ted Sarandos has already decried as a “levy”—a comment that SAG-AFTRA national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland called “preposterous.”
