Scarlett Johansson Joins A-List Actors Pressuring For End Of Strike
There is currently no end in sight for the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, but some A-listers are reportedly hoping that talks will re-open soon. According to Variety, Fran Drescher, the president of SAG-AFTRA, and Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the union’s executive director, had a Zoom meeting with stars like Scarlett Johansson, George Clooney, Tyler Perry, Emma Stone, and Ben Affleck to discuss the strike.
The tone of the meeting was described as “supportive,” but also that the group of stars was there to represent guild members who were ready to start re-negotiations with the studios represented by the AMPTP.
Scarlett Johansson has joined a group of A-list megastars working to end the SAG-AFTRA strike that also includes George Clooney, Tyler Perry, Emma Stone, and Ben Affleck.
According to the report, George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson, and the other A-listers had a “presentation” for Drescher and Crabtree-Ireland, which they will reportedly respond to after their meeting with the SAG-AFTRA Negotiating Committee. Reps for the actors and the union declined to offer official comments on the nature of the meeting. Still, the involvement of heavy-hitting A-listers will surely add some fire to getting negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP back on track.
This meeting with George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson, and the others was brought on since negotiations were tabled on October 11 after the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said the two parties were “too far apart.” The primary sticking point is a new streaming residual that actors would earn on top of current residuals for streaming shows. The new form of residual would come in the form of a $500 million per year fee for streaming services split up on a per-subscriber basis.
If George Clooney and Scarlett Johansson are representing members of SAG-AFTRA who are dissatisfied with the slow process of negotiations, it would appear that there may be some disagreement amongst the union’s ranks.
The $500 million per year fee would then be distributed to actors on streaming shows by a jointly administered trust based on metrics that likely include viewership numbers. However, the CEOs of the studios have deemed this number to be “untenable,” and the negotiations have fallen apart since then, causing the ongoing strike to surpass the length of SAG-AFTRA’s 1980 strike. George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson, and the other A-listers reportedly wanted to help find a way to resolve this disagreement and make sure all sides find the agreement, well, agreeable.
If George Clooney and Scarlett Johansson are representing members of SAG-AFTRA who are dissatisfied with the slow process of negotiations, it would appear that there may be some disagreement amongst the union’s ranks. The union members have been generally in solidarity up to this point, but being on strike for more than three months is certainly a long time for anyone. Especially after the WGA was able to get many of their demands met in a tentative agreement with the AMPTP that finally ended their strike.
Scarlett Johansson and other stars stepped in after SAG-AFTRA’s demand for a new streaming residual system caused negotiations to break down.
With the writers back to work, many projects can get back to the pre-production process, but the pressure is on the studios if they want to get actors back to filming to hit blockbuster release schedules. Many creatives in the industry have expressed worry about being able to hit planned releases, like Deadpool 3‘s director saying that a May 3 release date may not happen. Scarlett Johansson is also set to star in the Transformers One animated film, which is presumably waiting for the strike to end as well.
