How the actors strike will affect your favorite movies and TV shows

By Chris Isidore, CNN

New York (CNN) — Remember when a new television season started in September? Not this year.

Looking forward to big-budget blockbusters coming to a theater near you next summer? Maybe not.

You’ve always heard great things about “Breaking Bad” or “The Wire” but you never got around to watching it? Or maybe something more recent like the “The Last of Us,” which just got nominated for more than two-dozen Emmy awards? Now’s your chance.

And by the way, it might be a while before you know how many of those Emmys “The Last of Us” eventually takes home. The awards show, as with much in the TV and movie industry, is also very much uncertain right now.

But what you can count on is more reality shows, and maybe game shows, and probably more opportunity to binge shows that have already been on your favorite streaming service.

That’s because about 160,000 actors who belong to SAG-AFTRA are about to go on strike, joining more than 11,000 members of the Writers Guild of America who have been on strike since May 2.

Prepping for the long-haul

Some movies are already complete, of course, like “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” and set to hit theaters. And, like automakers or other manufacturers who might try to build extra inventory ahead of strike deadlines, some streaming services have been preparing for these strikes by stockpiling new movies and shows to roll out.

“We had to make plans for the worst. And so we do have a pretty robust slate of releases to take us into a long time,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said in April, just before the start of the writers strike.

But that pipeline of new shows is already slowing to a trickle.

Data from film permits in California indicates that production of most shows and movies already has been halted by the writers strike. Even though movies typically have a script in hand when they start shooting, revisions and changes mean a writer is usually needed while production proceeds.

Now with actors also going on strike, most remaining production will stop. The exception will be independent movies that are not associated with one of the major studios.

One group of television shows that will continue to produce new episodes is the traditional daytime soap operas. The writers of those shows are typically nonunion, and the unionized actors work under a different contract than the one that expired at 11:59 p.m. PDT on Wednesday.

But most other actors will stop working as soon as the union’s government board votes to go on strike later Thursday. Rank-and-file members have already voted 98% in favor of authorizing a strike.

Actors will not be doing publicity for movies that are being released, including appearing on the red carpet at movie premieres or doing interviews on podcasts. Of course, the writers strike brought an immediate halt to new episodes of US late night shows, so the opportunity to do that sort of publicity was already limited.

How long will it last?

What isn’t clear is how long this will continue. There are hopes by some in the industry that since writers and actors are out at the same time, that will put pressure on the studios and streaming services to improve their offers and get everyone back to work sooner rather than later. The last time the writers and the Screen Actors Guild, the precursor of SAG-AFTRA, were on strike at the same time was 1960 — so long ago that Ronald Reagan was the SAG president leading that strike.

But everyone agrees the industry is going through unprecedented change as the ways that the public consumes shows are changing rapidly, and the economics are changing with it.

Disney CEO Bob Iger didn’t seem to suggest there will be a solution in the near term, in comments Thursday morning.

“They are adding to a set of challenges this business is already facing that is quite frankly very disruptive,” said Iger, who is set to receive more than $25 million in compensation this year, about SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild in an interview on CNBC. “You have to be realistic about the business environment and what this business can deliver.”

But the unions say their members are suffering because of the changes in the business, like the shrinking amount of broadcast residuals in the age of streaming, and they’ve been pushed to the point where they can’t accept what the studios and streaming services are offering.

“The studios and streamers have implemented massive unilateral changes in our industry’s business model, while at the same time insisting on keeping our contracts frozen in amber,” said a statement from Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the union’s chief negotiator, issued early Thursday morning. “The studios and streamers have underestimated our members’ resolve, as they are about to fully discover.”

So don’t expect to see the return of many of your favorite shows any time soon.

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