Posted in: Movies, streaming, TV | Tagged: amptp, DGA, SAG-AFTRA, wga
SAG-AFTRA Mulling Over AMPTP Offer; More Studio Reps Join: Report
Reports are that SAG-AFTRA is now going through the AMPTP's latest offer, with more studio leaders joining today's virtual talks.
With the 114th day of the strike coming to an end, the pendulum has now reportedly shifted to SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher, Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, and the union's negotiating committee. With the AMPTP having submitted what's being called a comprehensive offer in response to the union's previous two proposals, both sides met briefly today before SAG-AFTRA began going over the specifics of what the studios & streamers were offering and discussing the union's next steps. It's still not clear at the time of this writing whether more talks will happen today or at some other point over the weekend. While there are rumblings on social media on what the AMPTP's offer may or may not contain, neither the studios & streamers nor the union have offered specifics on the record. As was reported earlier, NBCUniversal's Donna Langley, Warner Bros Discovery's David Zaslav, Disney's Bob Iger, and Netflix's Ted Sarandos – the four studio leaders who've had the most direct involvement in these negotiations and the negotiations with the WGA – were joined on the Zoom call by a number of other executives. Reportedly, Paramount Pictures CEO Brian Robbins, Disney's Dana Walden & Co-Chairman Alan Bergman, Amazon Studios' Mike Hopkins & Jen Salke, Sony Pictures Chairperson Tony Vinciquerra, Apple Studios' Jamie Erlicht & Zack Van Amburg also participated in today's virtual talks.
On Wednesday night, SAG-AFTRA messaged its members to inform them that they had met that day "to discuss and finalize our response to the AMPTP AI counter-proposal" that the union received from the AMPTP on Tuesday. "The negotiators then met with AMPTP representatives for more than three hours" on Wednesday afternoon and evening "to present and review our revised proposal." SAG-AFTRA TV/Theatrical Negotiating Committee added in their update that it was still awaiting "the AMPTP's response to our comprehensive counter proposal package, which we gave them on Saturday, addressing outstanding issues." And that brought us to Thursday – with no response from the AMPTP leading to no formal talks between Crabtree-Ireland's and AMPTP President Carol Lombardini's teams. However, additional reporting on Friday revealed that "conversations" did take place between the union and the studios & streamers on Thursday and Friday. Meanwhile, Drescher had a brief but important message for the studios & streamers at the end of a recent Instagram post: "TGIF! Let's hope the AMPTP CEOs resurface with a seal-the-deal counter! 🙏💪🤞🏽":