SAG-AFTRA Chief Negotiator and National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland is very happy with Taylor Swift and not so happy with Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos. We spoke with Crabtree-Ireland today at New York Comic-Con where he took the stage for a panel about AI. Talks collapsed on Wednesday night between studios and SAG-AFTRA following the guild’s
Labor
There’s more movement on the labor front as employees of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Downtown Brooklyn location have filed with the National Labor Relations Board to unionize. They’re seeking affiliation with the United Autoworkers. UAW Local 2179 is the petitioner on behalf of all full-time and regular part-time employees at the popular Brooklyn cinema. About
EXCLUSIVE: With such big 2023 movies such as Kraven the Hunter, the next Ghostbusters, the Zendaya romance Challengers and more moving into 2024 due to the SAG-AFTRA strike, exhibition is facing another possible recession should stars remain unable to promote. Movie theaters are currently relishing a box office boom in Barbie and Oppenheimer with the
It was a magnificent movie weekend. Barbie, Oppenheimer, Sound of Freedom. All hits, a blow-out! So what else have you got? The question sounds obnoxious, like its near-cousin, the always infuriating: “What have you done for me lately?” But it’s an honest query, and an important one for a strike-bound, streaming-bent, pandemic-emergent industry that is
What was it W. B. Yeats wrote, that line Joan Didion lifted and twisted in her essay “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” about West Coast chaos in 1967? Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. That’s how it felt on Thursday, a few minutes before lunch with some seasoned film executive-friends at the Academy Museum (Salad Niçoise
Expressing solidarity with Hollywood actors on Day 1 of the SAG-AFTRA strike, specialty distributors polled were anxiously juggling opening weekend Q&As and movie premieres without talent. They were trying to clarify which actors on what international productions are SAG-AFTRA, bound by the guild, or neither. And, for those involved in production, trying to pin down
It feels like Covid all over again, but it’s not. Disney has just made a slew of release-date changes, many due to the impact of the WGA strike and screenplays not being ready and productions paused. We already know that Thunderbolts and Blade are waiting the strike out before rolling cameras. Scripts aren’t fully ready
Six weeks into the writers strike, the early returns on summer studio films have been some of the best since Covid brought the exhibition business to a screeching halt. But if SAG-AFTRA members trade lines of dialogue for picket lines beginning July 1, the business might well look like pandemic redux. The domestic box office
Actors’ Equity has approved the first two theaters to resume performances since the nationwide shuttering of playhouses in March due to the coronavirus pandemic. The theaters, a pair of regional venues in Massachusetts, have agreed to safety protocols that include testing for Equity members and those who come in contact with them. The Berkshire Theatre
EXCLUSIVE: Actors’ Equity Association has hired the high-profile safety consultant David Michaels, former administrator of OSHA under President Barack Obama, to advise and help the union develop the steps necessary for reopening Broadway and theaters across the country after the COVID-19 shutdown. In an exclusive and wide-ranging interview with Deadline, Equity executive director Mary McColl
Actors’ Equity says it’s heard “troubling reports” that some live theaters are looking to begin production as soon as May 6. Legit theaters across the country shut down last month to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and Equity is skeptical that they can reopen anytime soon. Broadway productions are closed until June 7, at the