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Hollywood Actors Reach Tentative Deal with Studios to End Strike

SAG-AFTRA members and their supporters picket outside Netflix during their strike against the Hollywood studios, in Hollywood, California, on November 8, 2023. (Photo by Robyn Beck / AFP)
SAG-AFTRA members and their supporters picket outside Netflix during their strike against the Hollywood studios, in Hollywood, California, on November 8, 2023. (Photo by Robyn Beck / AFP)
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Hollywood Actors Reach Tentative Deal with Studios to End Strike

SAG-AFTRA members and their supporters picket outside Netflix during their strike against the Hollywood studios, in Hollywood, California, on November 8, 2023. (Photo by Robyn Beck / AFP)
SAG-AFTRA members and their supporters picket outside Netflix during their strike against the Hollywood studios, in Hollywood, California, on November 8, 2023. (Photo by Robyn Beck / AFP)

Hollywood actors reached a tentative agreement with major studios on Wednesday to resolve the second of two strikes that rocked the entertainment industry this year as workers demanded higher pay in the streaming TV era.

The 118-day work stoppage will end officially just after midnight, the SAG-AFTRA union said in a statement after its negotiating committee voted unanimously to support the deal.

Valued at more than $1 billion, the new three-year contract includes increases in minimum salaries and a new "streaming participation" bonus, the union said.

According to Reuters, the deal also provides protections against unauthorized use of images generated by artificial intelligence (AI), an area that had emerged as a major concern from performers who feared being replaced by "digital doubles."

"We have arrived at a contract that will enable SAG-AFTRA members from every category to build sustainable careers," the union said.
SAG-AFTRA President and "The Nanny" star Fran Drescher wrote on Instagram: "We did it!!!! The Billion+ $ Deal!"

The group's national board will consider the agreement on Friday, and the union said it would release further details after that meeting.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which negotiated on behalf of Walt Disney, Netflix and other media companies, said Wednesday's agreement represented "a new paradigm" that gave the union its "biggest contract-on-contract gains" in its history.

The organization said it "looks forward to the industry resuming the work of telling great stories."

With the strike ending, Hollywood can ramp up to full production for the first time since May.

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UK Blues Legend John Mayall Dead at 90 

English blues singer John Mayall performs with his band The Bluesbreakers, on the stage of the Miles Davis hall during the 42nd Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, late Monday, July 7, 2008. (AP)
English blues singer John Mayall performs with his band The Bluesbreakers, on the stage of the Miles Davis hall during the 42nd Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, late Monday, July 7, 2008. (AP)
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UK Blues Legend John Mayall Dead at 90 

English blues singer John Mayall performs with his band The Bluesbreakers, on the stage of the Miles Davis hall during the 42nd Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, late Monday, July 7, 2008. (AP)
English blues singer John Mayall performs with his band The Bluesbreakers, on the stage of the Miles Davis hall during the 42nd Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, late Monday, July 7, 2008. (AP)

John Mayall, the British blues pioneer whose 1960s music collective the Bluesbreakers helped usher in a fertile period of rock and brought guitarists like Eric Clapton to prominence, has died at 90, his family said Tuesday.

Mayall, a singer and multi-instrumentalist who was dubbed "the godfather of British blues," and whose open-door arrangement saw some of the greats in the genre hone their craft with him and his band, "passed away peacefully in his California home" on Monday, according to a statement posted on his Facebook page.

It did not state a cause of death.

"Health issues that forced John to end his epic touring career have finally led to peace for one of this world's greatest road warriors," it said. "John Mayall gave us 90 years of tireless efforts to educate, inspire and entertain."

Mayall's influence on 1960s rock and beyond is enormous. Members of the Bluesbreakers eventually went on to join or form groups including Cream, Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones and many more.

At age 30, Mayall moved to London from northern England in 1963. Sensing revolution in the air, he gave up his profession as a graphic designer to embrace a career in blues, the musical style born in Black America.

He teamed up with a series of young guitarists including Clapton, Peter Green, later of Fleetwood Mac, and Mick Taylor who helped form the Rolling Stones.

In the Bluesbreakers' debut album in 1966, "Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton," John Mayall enthralled music aficionados with a melding of soulful rock and gutsy, guitar-driven American blues featuring covers of tunes by Robert Johnson, Otis Rush and Ray Charles.

The blues music he was playing in British venues was "a novelty for white England," he told AFP in 1997.

That album was a hit, catapulting Clapton to stardom and bringing a wave of popularity to a more raw and personal blues music.

Mayall moved to California in 1968 and toured America extensively in 1972.

He recorded a number of landmark albums in the 1960s including "Crusade," "A Hard Road," and "Blues From Laurel Canyon." Dozens more followed in the 1970s and up to his latest, "The Sun Is Shining Down," in 2022.

Mayall was awarded an OBE, an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, in 2005.