SAG-AFTRA Wraps a Month of Studio Talks With No Deal, Will Resume in June

SAG-AFTRA has concluded a month of negotiations with the major studios without reaching a new contract, and will resume talks in June.

The outcome was not unexpected, though negotiators had held out some hope that a new contract could be reached in March.

“SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP completed productive bargaining sessions, including going several days beyond what was originally planned,” the two sides said in a statement. “While we will continue ongoing conversations, formal negotiations will resume later this spring as planned, before the current contract expires June 30. We thank both negotiating committees for their shared commitment to reaching a fair deal and their thoughtful engagement, including over this entire weekend. We will continue to respect the press blackout and will provide an update in the coming months.”

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The union began talks on Feb. 9, and originally expected to conclude on March 6. With some encouraging signs, the parties agreed to extend the original schedule by an extra week in hopes of reaching a deal.

The Writers Guild of America negotiations are due to begin on Monday, which functioned as a hard deadline on the SAG-AFTRA talks. The WGA contract expires first, on May 1. After that, the AMPTP is scheduled to sit down with the Directors Guild of America on May 11. Both the DGA and the SAG-AFTRA contracts expire on June 30.

Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the union’s executive director, has been leading the negotiations for the union, while Greg Hessinger, the newly installed CEO of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, has been representing the studios.

The two sides have addressed an array of subjects, but the thorniest one — as was the case during the 2023 strike — may be artificial intelligence. SAG-AFTRA is looking to assert some control over the use of “synthetic performers” — digital avatars that bear no resemblance to a real-life actor.

The union was successful in 2023 in establishing robust protections over the use of AI replicas. The mantra during those negotiations was “consent and compensation” for the use of an actor’s likeness. That negotiation was made somewhat easier because both actors and studios have some upside in the use of AI voices and performances — so both had some motivation to come to terms.

Synthetic performers — like “Tilly Norwood” — present a harder case, because real-life actors gain little or nothing from their use, and also have scant leverage to stop studios from using their performances to train AI systems.

In 2023, SAG-AFTRA tried to get a veto over the use of synthetic performers, and was denied. One idea that has been floated this year is the “Tilly tax” — a payment that studios would be required to make to a union fund for use of synthetic performers.

Other issues on the table include the health and pension funds, exclusivity windows, and increases in residuals on streaming platforms.