The 1954 Hollywood classic “On the Waterfront” ends with union members on a dock. Fed up, they stand idly staring at a bloodied Marlon Brando. Suddenly an authoritative man in a smart suit and a neat hat arrives. “We need to get this ship going,” he barks. “It costs us money!”
This past week, as TV and movie actors went on strike for the first time in 43 years and joined the already notable screenwriters on picket lines, Hollywood began looking around for its version of that figure — someone, anyone, to find a solution to the stalemate and get America’s film factories up and running again.
But the more the entertainment industry looked, the more it became clear that such a person may no longer exist.
“It used to be Lew Wasserman who would make the calls and move them along,” says Jason E. Squire, a professor emeritus at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, referring to the super-agent turned studio mogul. “Today is different. Traditional studios and the tech companies that have moved to Hollywood have different cultures and business models. There is no studio elder, respected by both parties, to help close a deal.”
At the moment, no talks between union leaders and the companies involved are taking place and none are planned, with both sides insisting that the other should take the first step.
Two federal mediators have studied the issues that led to the breakdown of the negotiations. Agents and lawyers are caught up in a flurry of back-channel phone calls, encouraging union leaders and studio executives to soften their staunch positions; Creative Artists Agency heavyweight Bryan Lourd asked the Biden administration and California Gov. Gavin Newsom to get involved, according to three people briefed on the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the labor situation. A spokesperson for Mr Lourd declined to comment.
Emotions need to cool down before talks resume, said an entertainment lawyer who has been working in the background to bring the parties back together. When does that happen? He said it could be next week or mid August.
From 1960, the last time both actors and writers went on strike, and continued into the 1990s, the dreaded Wasserman was the person who could break an impasse. He commanded the respect of both labor and management and was able to go beyond the colorful personalities in each camp.
It was an era when the entertainment industry was much less complicated for the most part. Studios weren’t buried in conglomerates and committed to lucrative toy divisions, not to mention they had to deliver quarterly growth.
Bob Daly, who owns Warner Bros. led in the 1980s and 1990s, taking over from Wasserman, who died in 2002. Daly, who later managed the Los Angeles Dodgers, said over the phone that he was no longer involved in Hollywood’s labor disputes. But he had some advice.
“One thing that worries me is that it’s gotten personal, which I think is a mistake,” Mr Daly said. “The only way this will be resolved is to get both parties in a room and talk, talk, talk until they reach a compromise. Neither side gets everything they want. You can scream and yell in that room – I’ve done it many times myself – but don’t come out until you have a deal.
The last Hollywood strike occurred in 2007 and 2008. The Writers Guild of America walked out over a variety of issues, with compensation for shows distributed online being a major sticking point. It was resolved after 100 days (the current writers’ strike was 81 days old on Thursday) when Peter Chernin, then president of News Corporation, and Robert A. Iger, Disney’s relatively new CEO at the time, took hands-on roles in resolving the stalemate. Barry M. Meyer, who was chairman of Warner Bros., and Jeffrey Katzenberg, then the CEO of DreamWorks Animation, also had roles.
All those men, with the possible exception of Mr. Chernin, are now engaged in other matters or viewed as villains by actors.
Mr. Iger, who returned to run Disney in November after a brief retirement, became a picket line piñata last week after telling CNBC that while he respected “their right and their desire to get as much as possible,” union leaders weren’t “realistic.” The backdrop to his interview, a gathering of elite media and technology executives in Sun Valley, Idaho, was pouring gasoline at this point.
Mr. Katzenberg left the entertainment business largely in 2020 following the collapse of Quibi, his streaming start-up. In April, Mr. Katzenberg Named Co-Chairman of President Biden’s Re-Election Campaign.
Mr. Meyer retired from Hollywood in 2013 after a celebrated 42 years and subsequently became a member of the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. “I had nothing to do with the negotiations this year,” he said in an email. “That said, it doesn’t stop me from feeling sad about the way things are right now.”
That leaves Mr. Chernin. In 2009, he left Hollywood’s corporate ranks and founded an independent company that includes a film and television production arm – he has a deal with Netflix – and a sprawling investment portfolio focused on new technology and media companies. In recent days, Mr Chernin told a senior staff member that he had not been approached for help with the strikes, but would be hard pressed to say no if asked.
A spokeswoman for Mr Chernin declined to comment.
The studios now tasked with figuring out how to appease actors and writers vary wildly in size and have diverging priorities. They all say they want to solve the strikes. But some are more willing than others to compromise and resume talks immediately. The willing camp includes WarnerBros. Discovery, while Disney, which owns Disney+ and Hulu, has taken a harder line, two people involved in the negotiations said. Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney declined to comment.
Some people in Hollywood have looked to elected officials to pave a path, but so far direct involvement, if any, has been unclear. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass last week called the actors’ strike “an urgent matter that needs to be resolved, and I will work to make that happen.” A spokesperson declined to answer questions about what exactly she was doing.
Mr Newsom said in May that he would intervene in the writers’ strike “when both sides called for him”. He has not commented on the actors’ strike and a spokesman did not respond to questions.
With two unions on strike, it could be months before new contracts can be negotiated and ratified. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which negotiates on behalf of the largest studios, has decided to focus first on resolving disagreements with SAG-AFTRA, as the actors’ union is called, the two involved in the negotiations said.
Cameras may not start rolling again until January, given the time it takes to reassemble casts and crews, with the year-end holiday being a complication, executives at WarnerBros. Discovery and other companies told staff this week.
SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America are particularly notable because, they say, entertainment companies — led by Netflix — have introduced unfair streaming compensation formulas. This was the biggest sticking point at the negotiating table, much more so than union demands for artificial intelligence guardrails, according to three people briefed on the matter. (The companies defended their proposed improvements to the contract as “historic”.)
Under the now-expired contracts, streaming services pay residuals (a form of royalty) to actors and writers based on the number of subscribers in the United States and Canada. The actors’ union, in particular, has made it clear that a new contract should go back to a version of the old way — with streaming services using payment formulas based on the popularity of shows and movies, as traditional television channels have done for decades, with Nielsen as an independent benchmark.
Streaming companies refuse to disclose detailed ratings; secrecy is part of the Big Tech culture. Independent metering companies, including Nielsen, have tried to fill the gap, but they’ve only provided vague information – some get a lot of views, some don’t. No one but the companies knows if a streaming show like “Stranger Things” is watched by 100 million people worldwide or 50 million.
Netflix indicated on Wednesday that it considered the data it makes public sufficient. The company posts weekly top-10 lists on its site; the rankings are based on “engagement,” which Netflix defines as the total number of hours watched divided by the duration.
“We believe regularly sharing this engagement data helps talent and the wider industry understand what success looks like on Netflix — and we hope that over time other streamers become more transparent about engagement with their services,” Netflix said in its quarterly letter to shareholders.
John Koblin contributed reporting from New York.
