How important is the AI issue to SAG-AFTRA members? Significantly, Tom Cruise zoomed in on a bargaining hearing in June to urge the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to hear the union’s concerns about the issue, Hollywood Reporter to learn.
This is not it Mission: Impossible The only concern of the star. He also wanted to urge AMPTP to support the union’s stance on performers.
Cruz also had some words for SAG-AFTRA representatives regarding the delicate post-pandemic situation in movie theaters.
SAG-AFTRA sometimes calls on performers during negotiation sessions to discuss issues on which they have expertise. Any member can request a treatment negotiation session and the union can assess the value of their participation. The union appears to have concluded that Cruz’s point was worthwhile. It is understood that no other star of his caliber has been involved in the negotiations in this capacity.
SAG-AFTRA had a few proposals on the table in terms of stunt specialists, including stunt coordinators and performers, which the 160,000-strong union represents. The union has also sought to create more barriers around the use of generative AI in entertainment in its 2023 talks with studios and broadcast screens, with a focus on ensuring that performers are given consent and receive adequate compensation when their performances are absorbed into the technology.
Of course, despite Cruz being involved in the talks, after about five weeks, the Performers Union and AMPTP failed to reach an agreement by Wednesday night’s expiration of the union’s film and TV contract package. Beginning on July 14, performers began striking at studio yards and the company’s headquarters in New York and Los Angeles and halting their work, which subsequently led to closures and delays in productions including Mission Impossible 8.
In addition to studio lobbying and banners on behalf of SAG-AFTRA, Cruz is said to have asked the union to consider allowing actors to promote films while on strike given the fragile state of movie theaters and to remind his union that merchandising is important to actors, too. He felt “uneasy,” says a source who was present.
SAG-AFTRA’s current strike rules Maintain that publicity, including “conferences, interviews, tours, or social media promotion of any damaged business or battered companies” is expressly prohibited during business interruption.
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