The industry is engaged in a bitter battle over the how streaming — after advancing rapidly during the pandemic — has upended the economics of entertainment.
NEW YORK — To get a sense of just how much animosity is flying around Hollywood these days, watch how Ron Perlman responded to a report that the studios aimed to prolong a strike long enough for writers to lose their homes.
“You cannot change the business model as much as it has changed and not expect the contract to change, too,” said Fran Drescher, SAG-AFTRA president, in a fiery press conference announcing the strike. “We’re not going to keep doing incremental changes on a contract that no longer honors what is happening right now with this business model that was foisted upon us.
“What is happening right now was bound to happen. With streaming, the whole business got disrupted,” says Telang. “So naturally, they’re complaining, ‘We need our fair share.’ But how do you decide what’s a fair share? There has to be a transparency about where the money is coming from and where it’s going. Until this gets resolved, this issue will keep coming up.”
Meanwhile, actors are sharing images of their paltry residual payments for streaming hits. Kimiko Glenn of Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black” posted a clip of residual payments totaling $27.30. With traditional TV increasingly eroded by streaming, many studios have been cutting costs. Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix all slashed jobs over the past year and a half. Streaming profitability has remained elusive. The Walt Disney Co. says Disney+ will get there in fall 2024. WarnerBros. Discovery, which has taken the extreme step of canning finished productions to reshape its streaming strategy, says Max will start making money this year.
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