Posted on 12/24/2025 5:54:55 AM PST by dynachrome
Hollywood actor union Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) is plotting to go on strike next year over the possible acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by streaming giant Netflix, a report says.
Sources are telling reporters that SAG-AFTRA is currently “building a war room” in opposition to the merger — fearing that allowing the streamer to take over a film studio will be a disaster for actors and filmmakers, according to the New York Post.
“They believe that it’s bad for their members and it’s bad for consumers. A strike is not off the table if things heat up,” the Post added.
It has also been reported that Netflix has already reached out to the various Hollywood unions in hopes of putting them at ease over the possible merger. The streamer, though, has made no public comments about these talks.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
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I guess they’re eager to go back to their regular jobs as busboys.
AI movies cannot come fast enough. We need more waiters and waitresses.
EC
I would bet that a large majority of SAG-AFTRA members are rat voters. Screw them all. Let them work in a sweatshop. /spit
Intramural leftist feud so hopefully no.
Another hunger strike. Very entertaining.
In 1920s Japan, movie theaters had narrators, known as benshi (弁士), who explained to the audience what was happening on the screen, usually in a very dramatic manner. They unionized, and when talkies began showing up, they went on strike and said that they would not return until the theaters stopped showing talkies. As far as I can tell, they're still on strike.
Their AI replacements won’t
Buggy whip makers promise strike if Ford makes cars!!
They’re going to find out how useless they really are. I hear McDonald’s is hiring.
Nobody noticed last time. It accomplished nothing but (further) ruining them and the industry... which is a good thing.
Scooping french fries is exactly where useless lefty actors belong.
My son, who is an AI expert (he hates that term and never accepts that he is one because things are changing so rapidly - I call him one because others do and he’s my son) has made some 30-90 second videos using only AI, and they are mind blowing. The movie industry and celebrities as we know them, are going the way of buggy whip makers.
Not with AI.
We won’t need them.
Our current ‘celebrities’ will be the last generation of human ones.
Not really.
Why , no one will notice ,LOL
Hopefully their A.I replacements will be silent about politics and religion.
I fool with AI video making once in a while.
It’s a Breitbart story, so I’ll start with the obligatory “if accurate” disclaimer. But this rings true. From everything I read, the whole industry, tv and film alike, has awakened to the realization that some of the streamers, Netflix particularly, want to kill theatrical exhibition, make streaming platforms the sole outlet for viewers, and then consolidate the overbuilt streaming jumble into three or four global conglomerates that become the sole gatekeepers of all media.
Ted Sarandos has been too outspoken for too many years about wanting to kill theatrical for anyone to buy his smokescreen about a new commitment to theatrical if he gets control of WBD. No one believes him. Sarandos always puts it in terms of “the day of the theater has passed, streaming is the future.” Well, no, but that’s what will happen if the streamers buy all the studios and take their new movies straight to streaming upon release. The shrinkage of the theatrical window is the key here. The theaters simply can’t stay open if every new movie is going to be streaming immediately, or within two weeks at most.
Yes, the legacy studios have to get over woke disease and DEI, and start making more good movies. Several of them are starting to self correct, though there is a lot of firing and rebuilding to be done. The pendulum can swing back if competition is allowed to work and success is measured by ticket sales. But the streamers aren’t selling movies. They’re selling subscriptions. If they control sourcing, they can shut out any competition.
Maybe it’s time to enact a firewall between production and distribution. This battle was fought long ago when the major studios exerted pressure on the theaters to freeze out independent filmmakers, i.e. those outside the cartel. United Artists was formed to break the cartel’s grip and ooen the theaters. That was an epic fight that was eventually settled by Congress and the Supreme Court, but eventually a closed producer cartel was broken open. Now it’s the streamers trying to do the same thing to producers.
The unions weighing in on this might actually do some good if it tips some of the democrats the right way.
Brilliant idea, actors. It’ll work out great.
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