What Does the Film Industry Look Like a Year After SAG-AFTRA Agreements?

This time last year, after more than six months of tumultuous negotiations, the Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (known as SAG-AFTRA) and the WGA (Writers Guild of America) came to an agreement with Hollywood studios. The strike began in May 2023 and ended on November 9, 2023. For the first time since 1960, actors and writers walked out simultaneously. As the longest SAG-AFTRA strike to date, it resulted in the loss of over 45,000 jobs and halted many Hollywood productions. Following the disruption in the industry felt by the pandemic just three years earlier, this was devastating for many “below-the-line” workers, who don’t meet the minimums for union medical care and are having to take extreme economic measures like mortgaging their homes. 

Workers in the industry don’t feel that their job is done, though. Many saw these negotiations as temporary solutions to problems like A.I. and unfair wages. Writers and actors are still feeling the adverse effects of the hiatus, and others are nervous that more issues are soon to come.

One of the key points of the negotiations was A.I. usage in films, from writing to post-production. SAG-AFTRA secured many key protections for writers and actors, but ended up settling with studios that actors must consent to employers creating a “digital replica” of them for a job. Stunt actor Marie Fink told The Hollywood Reporter that when she showed up on the first day of her job for a show, they asked to make a digital replica of her. She was taken aback, and was under the impression that actors were to be given advanced notice. She had not been told beforehand. After negotiations, she was ultimately let go from the show for refusing a digital replica. 

There are very few shows and movies in production right now. Production in the U.S. in the last six months is down 37 percent compared to the same period in 2022. Writers especially are having difficulty finding work, and many shows were indefinitely postponed during the strikes. Rules about residuals were put in place, or the money writers get every time something they wrote is streamed, but it is too soon to see the effects of that. Writer Lannet Tachel told NPR that “the union’s gains are helpful, but, in the long run, you still have to be one of the lucky few to get in so that help applies to you.” While writers who can find work reap the benefits of the strike, like entry-level writers receiving “script fees,” or bonuses for each script produced, most writers are out of jobs completely and have been for some time.

Studios are cutting costs, making up for the “lost year” of cinema, where essentially everything in production was postponed months or even years (some movies slated to come out in 2023 or early 2024 have been postponed to 2026). Some movies were canceled completely, a huge blow, especially if they were already in the early stages of production and had been invested in. 

The SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes could mean good things for the future of protections for film workers, but as-is, the immense effects of the lack of production mean work is scarce, making the day-to-day lives of writers and actors difficult.