Who Won The Hollywood Strikes and What Does It Tell Us?

By now, the fact that much of Hollywood was on strike is probably an afterthought to most of us. Given the backlog of shows and wide range of content readily available for streaming, it’s likely many of us never even noticed anyone was on strike. Even during the pickets, there was always something to watch. Now that it’s over, the temptation is to reduce the whole thing down to the conclusion that it’s simply over. But what actually happened?

In this piece from the Hollywood Reporter, you can get some inside context about who were the winners and losers of the negotiation and how things actually came out. One big win came for up and coming writers, as their demand to be on set to learn about show production and gain valuable experience to later become showrunners was accepted. Actors will receive a residuals bonus on high performing streaming shows. To spread the bonus, 75% of these will be paid to actors and the remainder will be put into a fund to be allocated to actors on less popular shows.

On the topic of use of AI generated background actors, the results are more mixed and will take time to play out. The Actor’s Guild is claiming an “unprecedented” victory, yet some actors are already warning of loopholes in the agreement that still allow for studios’ widespread use of AI generated extras instead of hiring actors for those roles.