A-listers are getting involved in the SAG-AFTRA strike. Per Deadline, George Clooney met with his union’s leaders on Tuesday to discuss what happened when negotiations broke down between SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP on Wednesday, October 11.
Clooney reportedly spoke with SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland over Zoom about why negotiations fell apart between the studios and the actors union. Clooney has been particularly involved in the strike, donating $1 million dollars to the SAG-AFTRA Foundation earlier this summer. Per Deadline, other A-listers including Emma Stone, Ben Affleck, and Tyler Perry were also present for the meeting. The actors were reportedly most interested in discussing the revenue-sharing proposals the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee put before the AMPTP and the four studio chiefs Discovery’s David Zaslav, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley and Disney’s Bob Iger who were present at the October 11 meeting.
In a statement, SAG-AFTRA confirmed that a meeting took place but would neither confirm nor deny who attended the virtual meeting. “We meet with members of all profiles every day, and we won’t be commenting on those private conversations,” said a union spokesperson.
On October 11, the AMPTP announced that it suspended conversations with the actors union, saying that “the gap between the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA is too great, and conversations are no longer moving us in a productive direction.” The studio pointed to SAG-AFTRA revenue share, which seeks to create a new pool of money for actors whose work appears on streaming services. The proposal, which the AMPTP found unreasonable, would charge streaming services a fixed amount per subscriber. That amount, the studios say, would result in the studios hemorrhaging over $800 million a year, which would create an “untenable economic burden.”
However, the actors union says that number is false. In a statement released the next day, the SAG-AFTRA’s negotiation committee said the companies were “overstating it by 60 percent.” The two sides are still split on a number of issues, including the use of AI and minimum wage bumps. Still, Crabtree-Ireland told THR that he was “surprised” that the studios walked away from the negotiating table, saying that the meeting was fairly typical and that SAG-AFTRA’s revised proposal was “a huge, huge concession.”
“We have made big, meaningful counters on our end, including completely transforming our revenue-share proposal, which would cost the companies less than 57¢ per subscriber each year,” said the guild in an email sent on October 12. “They have rejected our proposals and refused to counter.” The email went on to accuse AMPTP of using “bully tactics” and “the same failed strategy they tried to inflict on the WGA.”