The 2023 Hollywood actors’ strike will come to an end at 12:01 a.m. on Thursday after SAG-AFTRA reached a tentative agreement with the studios on a new three-year contract.
Full details on the deal were not immediately made public, but a statement from the guild noted that it had been approved unanimously by the negotiating committee.
The deal, first reported by Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, comes after 118 days on the picket line, two weeks of intense negotiations, and notably, according to the Reporter, just ahead of a 5 p.m. deadline set by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers for the union.
The agreement does not necessarily mean the historic labor action is over for good. First it heads to the guild’s national board, which is expected to meet on Friday to review and consider its terms.
“Further details will be released following that meeting,” SAG-AFTRA said in a statement.
Only after that will the deal be sent to the union’s more than 150,000 members for ratification.
The tentative contract is expected to boost minimum pay, increase residual payments for streaming projects, strengthen rules around self-taped auditions, and better fund the union’s health and pension plans. Crucially, it also includes concessions on artificial intelligence, a major source of tension between the two sides as talks neared their end.
On Friday, the studios presented the union with what they called their “last, best and final” offer. Two days later, the union informed members that it had delivered its response, noting that the offer fell short on “several essential items,” including A.I. guidelines.
Variety reported that the AMPTP finally modified its language around A.I. on Monday night, triggering a 10-hour SAG-AFTRA committee meeting on Tuesday that continued into Wednesday morning.
The actors first walked out on July 14, two months after the Writers Guild of America went on strike. After the writers struck a deal with the studios in late September, all eyes turned to the actors.
On Oct. 17, their strike became the longest action against Hollywood’s studios in history. The previous record, which occurred in 1980, clocked in at 95 days.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
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