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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm confused.  What are they striking about?

And don't they realize that halting everything only hurts themselves (no premieres, no upcoming movie/TV releases and the revenue, etc)?

[/quote]

Why don't you read an article and come back?

One article. Even just skim it. [/quote]

plenty of good coverage of both the writers' and now the actors' strikes.

I hope folks can access this--the Post has a paywall but I think maybe the first article is visible? 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2023/07/13/why-actors-writers-strike-sag-wga-issues/

There are some truly existential issues at stake for actors as well as writers. And the PP who noted that studios want to pay actors ONCE to scan their likenesses and then use those likenesses as background AI "extras" forever is correct. It's indvidious. It's also not acting. Doing work as an extra is how quite a few actors make some initial money and start moving up to a line, then maybe a tiny role, then onward....

But there are many issues. Read the Post article or hey, just do one quick Google search, PPs who are confused. [/quote]

Technology has forced a lot of people from their jobs or forced them to pivot. Why should acting be some holy grail that can’t be touched? The reality? Thru could not even hire an extra in the first place and instead just use AI for all extras.

And maybe it’s time that acting became a regular paying job across the board. [b]Why do we need to pay actors millions of dollars in salary? What if they were paid a standard $250k salary a  year or even less? Plenty of people who would still want to do it[/b]. [/quote]

[b]Your 250K a year as steady income is a pipe dream for most actors. Please dont' think that "actors (make) millions of dollars a year." That's a tiny handful of people like the Tom Cruises of the world. [/b]

But rather than go into more details I'm going to just drop one fact here which puts pay into perspective. Bear this in mind: The pay mentioned here is gig-based, freelance, so it's a figure that most (not all, but most) actors have to [i]cobble together on their own from a role here, a role there, never being guaranteed any role at all.[/i]

[b]"As a SAG-AFTRA member, you have to make $26,000 a year to get health insurance. 87 percent of union members don't qualify annually."[/b]  (source: SAG-AFTRA national board member, actor Dule Hill)

In other words: [b]87 percent of union members make less than $26,000 a year from acting[/b]. That's not Tom Cruise "millions." Gig work is tough. Actors do it because they love it, and [i]we consumers lap it up[/i] but it's the studios who make billions who benefit, not the jobbing actors. Do not conflate TV series stars or "celebrities" with jobbing actors.

You do not understand how acting in TV and films actually works, day to day, year in and year out. It is a gig economy. Freelance. Freelancers don't get paid a "standard salary" in a "regular paying job across the board." Even actors employed in TV series filming year after year are working on contracts which are negotiated and renegotiated over and over and over and the studios always want more for less. Studios will NOT ever want to treat actors like they're office workers who get X dollars a year as a "standard salary." Studios want to use them then let them go -- and studios are letting them go much faster than in the past. Think about it. Old-school broadcast TV series used to run (some still do) anywhere from 20 to 24 episodes per season, but increasingly, "seasons" on streaming--where the work is moving--are four, six, eight episodes. Huge difference in the number of months of work, and income, per year that a series job provides to an actor. The amount of assured work and steady income is dwindling. On purpose. It saves the studios money. I'm [b]not[/b] saying that creators should be forced to turn a six-episode concept into a 22-episode one just to keep more actors employed longer. Even the actors wouldn't want to mess with the creative side like that. But the reality is that actors work fewer weeks and have longer hiatuses between work and now there's even talk of taking away work as extras--if you don't get why it's both impoverishing and insulting to be reduced to an AI avatar forever and ever, well, I can't make you get it.

[/quote]

You missed my point - Tom Cruise should also be making $250K salary a year and that's it.
And if he quits, oh well, plenty of people in line to replace him. [/quote]

Why should any A list actor be paid 10-15 million for a movie? Cap them at a million, offer residuals or ticket sale percent or something and then pay other actors more.  Obviously studio execs could easily take some pay cuts as well.[/quote]

1. Nobody trusts studio accounting. Some highlights:

"Art Buchwald received a settlement from Paramount after his lawsuit Buchwald v. Paramount (1990). The court found Paramount's actions "unconscionable", noting that it was impossible to believe that Eddie Murphy's 1988 comedy Coming to America, which grossed $288 million, failed to make a profit, especially since the actual production costs were less than a tenth of that. Paramount settled for $900,000,[8] rather than have its accounting methods closely scrutinized."

"Winston Groom's price for the screenplay rights to his 1986 novel Forrest Gump included a 3% share of the profits; however, due to Hollywood accounting, the 1994 film's commercial success was converted into a net loss, and Groom received only $350,000 for the rights and an additional $250,000 from the studio.[13]"

"Stan Lee, co-creator of the character Spider-Man, had a contract awarding him 10% of the net profits of anything based on his characters. The film Spider-Man (2002) made more than $800 million in revenue, but the producers claim that it did not make any profit as defined in Lee's contract, and Lee received nothing."

"The 2002 film My Big Fat Greek Wedding was considered hugely successful for an independent film, yet according to the studio, the film lost money"

"A Warner Bros. receipt was leaked online in 2010, showing that the hugely successful movie Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) ended up with a $167 million loss on paper after grossing nearly $1 billion."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

2. Streaming services do not want to pay residuals, Netflix wants to purchase a work and own it in perpetuity. [/quote]

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