Hollywood Strike Out

California’s latest woe is a double feature: Actors and writers striking at the same time.

Photo by Justin Aikin on Unsplash.

“Hollywood actors join screenwriters in historic industry-stopping strike as contract talks collapse,” reported Andrew Dalton and Leslie Ambriz for the Associated Press on July 13, 2023.

“Leaders of Hollywood’s actor’s union voted Thursday to join screenwriters in the first joint strike in more than six decades, shutting down production across the entertainment industry after talks for a new contract with studios and streaming services broke down,” noted the AP reporters.

“Employers make Wall Street and greed their priority and they forget about the essential contributors that make the machine run,” said actor’s union president Fran Drescher. “It’s disgusting. Shame on them. They stand on the wrong side of history.”

“At a moment when streaming and AI digital were prevalent, it has disemboweled the industry that we once knew,” said Drescher. “When I did ‘The Nanny’, everybody was part of the gravy train. Now it’s a vacuum.”

Hollywood executives on the other side of the negotiating table weren’t exactly thrilled either.

“This is the worst time in the world to add to that disruption,” Disney CEO Bob Iger told CNBC. “There’s a level of expectation that they have that is just not realistic.”