Before we start: Some unfortunate news. The Academy Museum gala set for Saturday has been postponed. From the Academy: “Out of respect for the devastating conflict and loss of life happening overseas, we have made the decision to postpone the Academy Museum gala this Saturday. We look forward to rescheduling at a later date. We thank everybody deeply for their support.”

OK, now welcome back to What I’m Hearing, a little late because I was at the Bloomberg media conference today for a live taping of The Town with Lucas Shaw. Great meeting so many readers and listeners, and everyone who couldn’t get into the room should blame Lucas. The episode drops on Monday, and the video will be posted on YouTube.

Speaking of that Bloomberg conference…

• Ari vs. Bryan vs. Ari: Looks like Ari Emanuel finally got to Bryan Lourd. After literally decades of the Endeavor C.E.O. poking his CAA rival, Lourd fired back at Emanuel today like I’ve never seen.

  As you’ll recall, in the wake of actress Julia Ormond suing CAA over its alleged “enabling” of Harvey Weinstein, I called out Lourd and partner Kevin Huvane in this space for their “special” relationship with Harvey in the ’90s. I also noted that execs accused of bad behavior sometimes temporarily step down during an outside investigation. Ari was clearly reading, because yesterday he used the Bloomberg event to demand the CAA guys do exactly that: Step down. “We have more morals,” he added of his company. (Notice he didn’t say a lot of morals. They are agents.)

  Lourd, with 24 hours to craft a response, chose not to take the high road today, as he usually does. Instead he called Ari “erratic” and “self-serving” and cited “the men he’s partnered with.” Yes, that’s a reference to Emanuel’s lieutenants Dana White of UFC (caught on video slapping his wife) and Vince McMahon of WWE (paying to settle multiple harassment claims).

  I asked Ari tonight what he thought of Lourd’s interview, and—shocker—he has thoughts. “He is dodging the following questions: What did he know? When did he know it? Why hasn’t CAA hired an independent firm to investigate the matter?,” Ari told me. All good questions, though Lourd said he would respond “in court, in a proper forum.” I think a lot of CAA employees and clients are looking forward to that response, and to whatever is revealed in the litigation.

  Exhausted yet? Lourd also took a shot at Emanuel for extracting money from Endeavor, an allusion to the $165 million he and Patrick Whitesell both got pre-I.P.O. while employees deferred part of their bonuses. That’s a bit weird because Lourd, Huvane, and Richard Lovett have also paid themselves huge amounts of money while others at CAA have griped about being left out, but whatever. “As far as compensation for his employees goes,” Ari told me, “I’m still waiting to meet a CAA partner who has been able to cash out along the way.” Great stuff, guys. Never change. (Usual disclosure: Endeavor’s WME reps Puck but not me personally.)

• Studios come around on Israel: Nice to see the Hollywood studios finally expressing support for Israel nearly a week after the attack by Hamas terrorists. It was a weird few days where the industry, famously founded by Jewish immigrants and still run by many Jews, was largely silent—apparently afraid of alienating segments of the global audience and some on the hard left. Behind the scenes, a pretty major lobbying effort by Jewish advocacy groups, publicists, and journalists has been urging stars and executives to make their stance clear online. It worked.
• Taylor, Beyonce… and?: I’m sure you’ve always wondered how much it would cost to shut down the Grove mall for a day. It’s $2 million, according to two sources at last night’s premiere of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, paid for by AMC Theaters. (Maybe that’s why there was no afterparty, no food beyond popcorn and fake nachos, and the lobby bar closed well before the film started.) Regardless, my buddy Adam Aron, the “Ape” C.E.O., was in great spirits last night—the news in Semafor of his unfortunate catfishing, and the revelation that he sent nudie pics to a stranger via text like a total f-ing moron, had yet to drop.

  With Eras Tour headed for a $150 million to $200 million global opening, Aron told me his phone has been ringing with pitches for the next stunt. Taylor Swift and Beyoncé may be unicorns, I told him, and playing concert films is hardly new, but I actually agree this could be a decent business for AMC amid the booming experience economy. If high-end concert films typically cost between $7 million and $12 million to make (Swift’s cost about $15 million, per the Times), and marketing costs are limited due to the social followings of stars, they only need to gross $25 million in theaters for artists to profit. That’s doable even for A- or B+ acts, and the theatrical play markets an eventual streaming release. If Aron can do four or five of these a year, that will at least help a little to make up for less studio product.

• More Taylor: Nothing in SwiftWorld happens by accident. Beyoncé’s “surprise” appearance last night—most everyone I talked to knew it was happening—is a move to head off comparisons between the two concert movies. The Eras Tour box office will likely outpace Renaissance when it arrives Dec. 13, and neither star wanted even a suggestion of competition. Hence Beyoncé schlepping to the Grove and Swift’s gushing Instagram post about her “guiding light.”
• Box office over/under: The Eras Tour tracking is ludicrously low—I’ve seen anywhere between $90 million and $110 million domestic—so I’m obviously taking the over. By adding Thursday night previews, I think a debut between $130 million and $140 million is totally doable.

Did the Writers Guild strike work? In key ways, it did. The WGA got essentially everything the less-restive Directors Guild got, including significantly increased foreign streaming residuals, AVOD/FAST minimums and residuals, and a 5 percent pay bump in the first year—plus the WGA achieved a success-based bonus streaming residual, guarantees on TV staffing and duration of employment, and significant, if flawed, constraints on A.I. And now the actors want what the WGA got, and then some: a more meaningful bonus streaming residual, an inflation-compensating pay bump, and better guardrails around A.I.

If each union gets what the previous one got, plus more, that’s no longer pattern bargaining, at least not as Hollywood has known it. Call it ratchet bargaining, or stairstep bargaining, but this stairway is potentially leading in one direction for labor: up.

SAG-AFTRA will almost certainly compromise on the key issues to a degree. And in fact, it already has. I’ve learned that the union cut its initial revenue-share ask from 2 percent of a platform’s gross to half that. Then, apparently at the studios’ request, the union restructured the proposal to a per-subscriber fee. That earned a rebuke from Netflix co-C.E.O. Ted Sarandos today that such a formulation “just felt like a bridge too far.” And the parties disagree on the cost of SAG-AFTRA’s proposal, with the AMPTP contending it would amount to $800 million per year while the union saying the actual cost would be $500 million annually. But it’s hard to avoid the impression that the companies are still trying to keep the guilds away from the revenue source, still trying to keep the camel’s nose from under the tent altogether rather than discussing whether the animal should have one hump or two.

On A.I., the AMPTP’s latest proposal, according to a source close to the union, would allow extracting consent for scanning from the actor at the time of employment—that is, when the actor is most vulnerable, having not yet secured the job—and then freely reuse the actor as a digital replica in films in the same franchise.

That is a blanket, albeit constrained, reuse. Imagine a Marvel actor being essentially forced to consent to be scanned and reused in all MCU films and shows before he or she is hired. And, as with the WGA deal, the AMPTP is offering actors no protection or compensation for using their past or future work as training input to generative A.I. systems, hastening the day when Silicon Valley bots may learn how to smirk, smile and flirt—and run, walk and parkour—as credibly as human performers. The transition from botty language to body language threatens the entire profession. Should SAG-AFTRA simply roll over?

Then there is the first-year basic wage increase. I’ve learned that the bid-ask is still 5 percent (the studio offer) versus 11 percent (the SAG-AFTRA demand). The union has been quite explicit that it won’t see its members making less in three years in real dollar terms than they made three years ago, before inflation spiked. But the writers did settle for 5 percent, and the studios fear that whatever they give the actors today will set the pattern for next year’s expiring contracts: SAG-AFTRA’s Netcode (talk shows, reality, late night, etc.), the IATSE agreements, the Teamsters Local 399 agreements and the basic crafts (plumbers, electricians and other trades) pacts. The studio fear is justified: If the actors get an inflation-compensating wage increase, crews, drivers and tradespeople will insist on it as well. But why shouldn’t they?

Indeed, IATSE’s and the Teamsters’ general solidarity with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA this year is based on a realization that above- and below-the-line fates are linked on wage increases and, to a great extent, on A.I. as well. For there to be a deal, something eventually has to give, and so far on these key issues, it seems unlikely to be labor. So despite all that optimism that the actors would wrap up their deal on the heels of the writers, I wouldn’t count on an agreement in the next two or three weeks. That likely means no return to production until 2024. It’s an uphill slog but, then, no one ever said stairstep bargaining would be easy.

Got a question, comment, complaint, or a new professional baseball team for me to adopt? Email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.