We all remember the writer’s strike of last year. On a scale of “good” to “bad” that was kinda in the “bad” range. It meant there were fewer episodes of The Office and everyone stopped writing screenplays to make into the movies that are released for our spending needs. The writers eventually came to an agreement with producers and got back to writing and the directors also agreed without even having one of those strike things and they are directing, but now we have to worry about the most important group of all, actors. Actually, the most important group is consumers, but screw them, right?
Fortunately, Hollywood isn’t prepared to bend over us fans just yet. Although the contract between the Screen Actors Guild and the producers expires on July 1st, Variety says the two sides are talking over the weekend in the hopes of hammering out a new deal. However, it appears unlikely any deal will be made before July 8th. The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists has already agreed to a deal with producers and it will be ratified (or not) by members on July 8th. SAG is encouraging its members who are also members of AFTRA (about 44,000 out of 120,000) to vote no on AFTRA’s deal, because who wants to work? Actually, SAG thinks it can get a better deal than AFTRAs and realizes that if the deal is ratified, their leverage on that is zero point two, coincidentally also Flounder’s freshman GPA.
While some of the acting muckety-mucks have taken sides on the AFTRA ratification, HR says George Clooney has taken a neutral position. He released a letter pointing out that both unions, are, of course, right. AFTRA feels that a work stoppage would be devastating to its members, and SAG believes that if they don't draw a line in the sand, the studios will repeat what they did with DVDs." Clooney notes that the big stars have a duty to protect the little guys and maybe should pay more union dues. The full text of Clooney’s letter can be seen at the link above. For now, we wait to see if the actors will walk off the job, if it means that Transformers 2 filming comes to a halt, I can’t say I’ll be disappointed.
