'We’ve got a message for Mr. Iger': New York Mega-Rally Burns Bright
Bryan Cranston, Steve Buscemi, Christine Baranski and others fired up the troops
Big day in the Big Apple, with a star-studded array of household names making fiery speeches at a SAG-AFTRA rally in Times Square today, from Christian Slater to Steve Buscemi to Christine Baranski.
Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston had some choice words for Disney chief exec Bob Iger, telling the head honcho that “we will not have you take away our right to work and earn a decent living.”
As Variety’s Joe Otterson reported:
“We’ve got a message for Mr. Iger,” Cranston said from the stage of the “Rock the City for a Fair Contract” rally. “I know, sir, that you look [at] things through a different lens. We don’t expect you to understand who we are. But we ask you to hear us, and beyond that to listen to us when we tell you we will not be having our jobs taken away and given to robots. We will not have you take away our right to work and earn a decent living. And lastly, and most importantly, we will not allow you to take away our dignity! We are union through and through, all the way to the end!”
Also in reported attendance were Chloë Grace Moretz, Melissa Joan Hart, Jessica Chastain, Brendan Fraser and Vanessa Williams, among other celebs.
Meanwhile, in Atlanta, stunt performers made a proper ruckus and set the scene on fire — literally. Video of stunt coordinator and Indiana Jones stunt performer Mike Massa spread (like wildfire, one might say) on social media today after he took to a small stage, aflame, while holding a SAG-AFTRA picket sign.
Bummed that you missed the show? Never fear, a special stunt performers picket — including a motorcycle brigade — is headed for the Warner Bros. studio lot on Thursday morning. You know, just in case coffee isn’t enough to stir you awake that day. (I will be there. Come say hi. And if you want to say hi before that, email me: elaine@theankler.com.)
Elsewhere on The Ankler
Flukes in the Ointment
While Hollywood continues to wage war against itself,
hones in on the ray of hope found in the Barbenheimer box-office numbers. Combined with the success of films like Theater Camp and Sound of Freedom, these movies are proof that audiences are craving original films that AI could never dream up in a million years, he says, and create cultural touch points to rally around.
There's no knowing what will be a hit. Given a choice, who would have chosen to make a toy adaptation that had been circling in endless development hell for years or the biggest bummer of a biopic imaginable over another Mission Impossible or Indiana Jones?
But you never know, and that's why you need artists, with vision and craftspeople with the power to execute at the highest level. Christopher Nolan had a vision, Greta Gerwig had a vision. Hollywood gave them the capacity to execute those visions at an unthinkable scale. AI in 10 zillion iterations would not come up with those visions, or be able to execute them.
But once you forget that, once you forget that entertainment is the business of novelty and excitement, and that it takes mad visionaries to pull it off, that is when we stop being a business of artists, and become a business of content providers, feeding the beast. And when that's all this is, then why not squeeze the "providers" for every cent you can, since they're all pretty much the same anyway?
Read the rest of the story here, available to paid Ankler subscribers only.
‘Idiots’: Wall Street Analysts Unload on Hollywood
While Rushfield finds a rare industry bright spot,
rings the alarm bells for the town’s CEOs as earnings season begins. In the wake of the double strike, The Ankler’s newest contributing editor (who also pens her own newsletter, The Media Mix) checks in with industry analysts to take Wall Street’s temperature. And it’s not pretty:
Despite criticisms from Hollywood leaders about poor timing of the strikes, some Wall Street analysts see the wisdom of a fast settlement.
Michael Pachter, research analyst at Wedbush Securities, is more pointed: “The market thinks all of the corporate bosses are idiots, and generally sides with the unions.”
He adds: “Higher pay might be difficult to endorse, but protections for residual uses of content and against AI make perfect sense to most people, and the media companies are intransigent and unapologetic.”
Indeed, it’s hard to find anyone on the analyst side feeling warm and fuzzy toward Hollywood right now.
The rest of Atkinson’s reporting, available to both paid and free subscribers, can be found here.
Today in Strike News
Amid outsized concerns over AI, Netflix listed a job posting for a machine-learning product manager, which pays a whopping $900,000 a year. “So $900k/yr per soldier in their godless AI army when that amount of earnings could qualify thirty-five actors and their families for SAG-AFTRA health insurance is just ghoulish,” actor Rob Delaney commented. (The Intercept)
Though AI has been the hottest topic of the actors strike, self-taped auditions are also being put under the microscope, with excess costs, dangerous stunts and even nudity being asked of actors. (Los Angeles Times)
This afternoon, Hollywood PR firms had the chance to attend a Zoom meeting with a SAG-AFTRA rep, where the financial impact of the strikes on their businesses was discussed. (The Hollywood Reporter)
Over in the soap opera sphere, productions are enlisting writers willing to cross picket lines to pen episodes of ABC’s General Hospital. (The Verge)
Picket Sign of the Day
Gritty takes the craft seriously — anyone else see him on the picket lines over on the Fox lot for Philly Day?
Additional reporting by Matthew Frank.
I was there yesterday. It was very inspiring. The key is going to be keeping that enthusiasm and focus in the coming months.
You hit an important note here that it’s not just about the artists. It’s also about the consumers of entertainment. They aren’t subscribers of platforms, they are fans of artists.