When you return to the summer time of 2023, fears that the business was headed towards a writers strike appeared virtually like a certainty. Only a few thought the actors would additionally be part of them on the picket traces. However after 118 days of being out of labor, actors authorised a brand new contract valued at $1.11 billion that offered a model new methodology for getting compensated from the top-performing streaming collection, some strenuous AI protections that some members imagine nonetheless didn’t go far sufficientand way more.
Three years goes by so quick.
Starting on February 9, 2026, SAG-AFTRA goes again to the negotiating desk with the movie and TV studios — the AMPTP — within the hopes of putting a brand new deal and avoiding one other strike. Duncan Crabtree-Eire, SAG-AFTRA’s chief negotiator and nationwide government director, has not dominated out the potential of a strike (why would he?) and a few of the similar points that have been massive considerations then are again on the desk once more right here in 2026.
However issues are completely different this time round. SAG-AFTRA now has a brand new union president, “Lord of the Rings” star Sean Astinand so does the AMPTP, Greg Hessinger. Hessinger beforehand led each SAG and AFTRA, he has deep ties to many business union leaders, and he has spent the final eight months within the job not negotiating different offers however gearing up for this second.
Whereas the earlier long-time negotiator for the AMPTP, Carol Lombardini, liked saying “No,” Hessinger desires to take away a few of the gamesmanship within the course of and be extra intentional about what the studio CEOs truly need. No extra Bob Iger fake pas within the press in the event that they might help it.
“We sit up for working collaboratively with our companions at SAG-AFTRA as we start formal bargaining,” an AMPTP spokesperson mentioned in a press release. “By taking the time to thoughtfully interact on the challenges confronting our business, we’re optimistic that, collectively, we are able to attain a good deal that displays our shared dedication to supporting our business’s proficient performers and selling long-term stability.”
What’s extra, you might discover that your calendar solely says “February” though the present union contract doesn’t expire till June 30. The guild jumped on the supply from the studios to barter early and benefit from the additional time, and SAG-AFTRA and the studios will spend the following month bringing proposals. There’s an actual chance that this bargaining interval goes by with no new deal and that talks choose again up once more in June, after each the WGA and DGA have had their likelihood to barter.
When you ask Astinall of the proposals SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee carry to the desk are necessary as they pertain to all members of the union, from intimacy coordinators to background performers to stunt women and men. And whereas the final contract addressed issues like self-tape auditions and make-up and hairstyling necessities, a few of these are considerations once more. However there shall be three points that take up plenty of the headlines and oxygen. We break them down beneath:
Well being and Pension Plan
Whereas all three of the subjects listed here are going to be important to all three guilds, refueling every guild’s healthcare and pension plans shall be important. SAG-AFTRA may very well be in a greater form than its friends on the subject of preserving the plans funded, however the guilds have been considerably impacted by the economic system, inflation, just about all of the junk happening on the planet. Throwing a number of extra {dollars} on the plans gained’t essentially resolve something, so anticipate the guilds to ask for vital, perhaps even historic adjustments.
One query is whether or not that comes with adjustments to protection that may irk some members, however the greater one which was reported by Deadline is that the studios could also be in search of an extended contract time period — IndieWire understands the AMPTP is in search of at first a five-year time period as a substitute of three — in change for a few of that historic healthcare funding. SAG-AFTRA hasn’t even engaged with that hypothetical, whereas Administrators Guild president Christopher Nolan in a current interview hinted that such a proposal, at the very least for the DGA, might be a non-starter.
“If we had agreed to a five-year contract in March of 2020, the place would we be now,” Nolan informed press final week. “We live in an business the place issues are shifting very, very quick when it comes to how they select to run their companies, and there aren’t any assurances they’d be capable of give us on how that’s settling down or what that path could be.”
Streaming Residuals
Residuals have been a serious level of competition through the strikes, as the times of actors (or writers or administrators) having the ability to help themselves on residuals from cable re-runs are gone. The WGA fought for a easy bonus construction that if a present reached 20 p.c of a streaming platform’s whole U.S. subscribers in its first 90 days on the service. It was designed to reward the largest reveals that produce huge worth for streamers and little for the creators.
SAG-AFTRA’s was just a little extra sophisticated. It had the identical viewership threshold, however whereas a few of that cash went to the actors on the present themselves, 25 p.c of the bonus went to a fund administered by the employers and the union. It was a manner of getting the entire membership paid, not only a handful of actors on the highest reveals, and it was meant to generate as much as $40 million a yr, or $120 million throughout three years of the contract, for all its members.
IndieWire beforehand reported that some funds have been in reality despatched out on account of thishowever we perceive that the quantity paid has fallen properly in need of preliminary projections. Anticipate some main course corrections.
Synthetic Intelligence
Regardless of the gorgeous strong protections SAG-AFTRA and the opposite guilds received the primary time round, AI is at all times going to be the elephant within the room. The guild’s massive speaking level final time round was “knowledgeable consent and compensation,” which means that actors ought to know upfront precisely how a studio intends to make use of generative synthetic intelligence, and they need to receives a commission on the identical stage at which an actor would usually receives a commission if the studio chooses to.
Within the three years because the studios agreed to these phrasesAI fashions have gotten extremely extra refined (and scary) for the business, but it surely’s not as if a artificial actor like Tilly Norwood has abruptly popped up in a Marvel film.
So SAG-AFTRA’s newest technique of getting forward of that is to ask for what Selection first reported has come to be generally known as the “Tilly Tax,” {that a} studio could also be required to pay the guild a royalty if it makes use of an actor that isn’t actual. Basically the guild desires to make it a fair taking part in discipline, that if an artificial actor is utilized in a movie, it ought to value the identical quantity (or extra) than it does to rent an actual actor, and in that battle, the studio will in idea virtually at all times select the actual particular person.
There are prone to be extra granular asks when it comes to understanding the coaching information of AI fashions used on a movie, but it surely’s unclear if actors will be capable of demand a say on what the studios do with their IP, like within the case of Disney licensing its characters to OpenAI’s Sora 2 mannequin.