Hollywood powerhouses like Disney, Sony, Netflix, Paramount, Apple, and Amazon are about to feel a new level of pain as more than 160,000 actors are set to join the writer’s strike, which has been active since early May. For the first time in 43 years, the Hollywood actors’ union voted to strike on Thursday, in a move that will bring the multi-billion dollar television and movie business to a screeching halt.
I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us.
How far apart we are on so many things. How they plead poverty, that they’re losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their C.E.O.s. It is disgusting. Shame on them!
Fran Drescher, the president of SAG-AFTRA – New York Times
The strike action will not only see work on set for television and movie production cease but it is also expected to press pause on the publicity events for upcoming films like Haunted Mansion. When the strike was announced, the cast of the upcoming film Oppenheimer promptly left the red carpet, exiting the London Premiere ahead of the screening.
We talked about it. Everyone’s going to walk obviously in solidarity.
The second it’s called, we’re going home.
Matt Damon – Sydney Morning Herald
With the film and television industry approaching an abrupt standstill, content streaming services like Disney+, Apple, Netflix, and Amazon will quickly feel the squeeze. The length of the action will determine the cost of the strike on the big providers; however, the staying power of both the writer’s and actor’s strikes should be of significant concern.
In both instances, the issue at the center of the dispute is the effects of AI-generated content. Hollywood’s hard-working, creative backbone is pushing for new contract standards that protect writers and actors from AI-generated scripts and computer-generated likenesses replacing their work.
Will we see a Haunted Mansion premiere in the coming weeks? The answer is unlikely.
