The sequel Hollywood needs to avoid

This week, the contract between the Screen Actors Guild, the primary labor union representing actors, and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the organization consisting of producers and power players, ended. Yet another strike looms within the film and television industries, which are still recovering from the Writer’s Guild strike that ended only five months ago.\nJust like any sequel, the details this go-around are a bit different, and the stakes have been raised. Although SAG represents about 120,000 members of the acting community and roughly 90 percent of film and TV actors, another similar labor organization known as the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists represents the other 10 percent. Making matters worse is that 44,000 of AFTRA’s 70,000 members are members of both that organization and SAG.\nSo while AFTRA has been discussing a new contract with the AMPTP recently that mirrors the one the WGA signed after their 100-day strike, SAG members have been pushing to undercut that deal. The members of AFTRA are satisfied enough with the changes in DVD and new media residuals that they’ve called for all members to ratify it on July 7, but SAG seemingly wants more on the residual front, and are therefore trying to stop the AFTRA/AMPTP ratification.\nAfter the WGA strike ended, most assumed that the actor’s guild and producers would never want Hollywood to be crippled like that again, let alone just a few months later. However, we made the wrong assumption that some of the richest people in the world wouldn’t want to become even wealthier. How quickly they’ve forgotten that the writer’s strike cost the town of Los Angeles over $2 billion and that low-tier workers lost more than anyone.\nEven though everyone on the SAG side of things is saying that a strike will not happen and that they’re completely committed to negotiating even after the contract has ended, it’s not good news for Hollywood or fans.\nIf a strike or lockout happens, all of the TV shows that were shortchanged last season will not even get off the ground this year. Production on most shows haven’t yet started again, so they’d be set back that much more. Big-time films in production today with hundreds of crew members could be shut down tomorrow and everyone would be unemployed.\nHowever, SAG isn’t completely wrong for trying to get the best deal they can. The power hungry AMPTP obviously doesn’t like to budge on anything, and instead like to throw their power around in an attempt to bully the creative people into whatever deal they want. That’s essentially what they did to the WGA and want to do here, so the SAG does deserve some credit for standing tough.\nIn the end, it won’t matter which side is right or wrong. What matters is that people keep their jobs, audiences are entertained and everyone makes money. But sadly with Hollywood, the sequel is typically worse than the original, so we could be in for a very long summer.