Amid concurrent strikes led by the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA, the landscape of Hollywood is undergoing preparations for an atypical fall festival season.
Insights are now emerging regarding how the interim agreements set forth by SAG-AFTRA might influence the sales of films showcased at these festivals.
Duncan Crabtree Ireland, the chief negotiator for SAG, emphasized that purchasers of films that have embraced interim agreements must adhere to the stipulations outlined within these agreements. Notably, streaming platforms align with these interim agreements for promotional purposes. In that case, they are committing to SAG-AFTRA’s mandate that actors involved in streaming projects receive a 2 percent share of subscription-generated revenue, determined by a metric from Parrot Analytics.
Crabtree-Ireland elaborated, “The contract includes assumption provisions,” underscoring that distributors will assume the responsibility to meet the residual payment obligations delineated in the contract. Despite acknowledging the potential, he expressed skepticism about streaming services being enthusiastic about acquiring projects affiliated with the interim agreement, citing, “The likelihood that an AMPTP [company] is going to feature projects for which they will need to allocate revenue share during the strike is, in my estimation, minimal or non-existent.”
However, it’s crucial to note that these agreement terms only apply for the strike’s duration. Ultimately, as Crabtree-Ireland explained, once management and labor reach a consensus, the terms of the Interim Agreement will transition to those outlined in SAG-AFTRA’s fresh three-year TV/theatrical agreement on a forward-looking basis.
Companies, encompassing studios and streaming platforms, procuring projects associated with interim agreements will also be obligated (temporarily until the final new three-year contract is ratified) to comply with SAG-AFTRA’s residual requisitions as addressed in these negotiations. This encompasses elevated residual compensations, the mandate to report domestic and international revenues to calculate residuals separately, and the disbursement of residuals to stunt coordinators. Additionally, they must elevate SAG-AFTRA’s minimum wage standards by 11 percent and incorporate performance-capture artists as part of the union’s performers.
Within the industry, apprehension has arisen regarding how this provision could impact film market dynamics at prestigious festivals like Venice and Toronto. The fear stems from the concern that significant players like Netflix and Disney—constituents of AMPTP—might be disinclined to acquire projects in production or finished films that have entered into interim agreements governed by terms they previously rejected.
A notable instance is Michael Mann’s film “Ferrari,” set in Venice, which secured an agreement permitting stars Adam Driver and Penelope Cruz to partake in festival activities and media engagements. (Neon, which acquired distribution rights for “Ferrari” in North America, is not an AMPTP member.) Numerous projects bound for Venice and Toronto have sought interim agreements, but their status still needs clarification.
SAG organized a press conference after announcing that, moving forward, the performers’ union will refrain from offering interim agreements to projects subject to a Writers Guild of America contract and produced within the U.S.
