Top Hollywood actors offer $150 million to help end strike
reuters.com
Their offer, confirmed by Clooney's spokesperson on Thursday, would provide the union an extra $150 million over three years and could help fund improved health benefits.
Clooney also said top stars would only collect residuals once lower-paid actors received theirs.
"A lot of the top earners want to be part of the solution," Clooney told Hollywood publication Deadline, which first reported the news. "We think it's fair for us to pay more into the union."
A SAG-AFTRA spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Look, this is a super swell offer but George Clooney shouldn't be bailing major studios out of their obligations. They can afford to settle the strike all on their own they just choose not to. Frankly, I think George should stop trying to score points for his generosity and grab a picket sign and make himself useful. He isn't the problem but he's not the fucking solution either.
The "top stars" are also hurting. They are more likely to be invested in films, or expecting big paydays to pay their big mortgages. So George and company may be willing to kick in some pocket change to clear the logjam.
Big actors are also producers/executive producers of everything they work on (unless is something like marvel I guess) and pretty sure the real money come from that. They have a conflict of interest on the strike.
Just because you personally benefit from the existing system doesn't mean that you should accept it as OK the way it is, or that it is not capable of being changed to something better, and rejecting the existing system is always a choice. (I thought we went over this in the movie already!)
So, having a production company (I just want more of me on the credits OK?) doesn't mean that I shouldn't to march and picket and fight for what's right.
It'd be a beautiful thing if the top Hollywood stars showed some real solidarity and started/used their own production companies to give SAG-AFTRA a fair deal and make some creative, original films. It'd probably scare big studios knowing there was money being made that they weren't getting their cut of.
Yeah, while most big actors have put on an outward show of solidarity with the strikes, let's not pretend they're not basically in the same position as the studio execs
If he can offer 150 million, how bad is he really hurting?
George isn't personally offering 150M
Oh, I see. Thanks for clarifying!
That was kind of what I thought. While it's nice he is doing this, he should have done it after the strike. This only serves to let the studios off the hook.
Plus when IATSE is next up to negotiate they're going to get hosed because "not even SAG-AFTRA could get that".
Just like with tipping or YouTube ads, individual acts of generosity cannot resolve systemic issues but only serve to reinforce the existing system. The only good way to settle the strike is to win.
So please, help keep the strike going, buy a shirt or a mug, every bit helps.
https://www.sagaftra.org/official-sag-aftra-strike-swag-available
It’s easy to be cynical and 150M towards health benefits seems like a good and altruistic offer but shouldn’t the studio be paying health benefits. Is this just a golden strike buster so top Hollywood actors can get back to earning millions while the rest return to crappy conditions.
Imo Clooney et al. are hoping to get all the actors back to work because strike pay isn't cutting it. Bribing AFTRA isn't a bad thing at this point as there's already stories of actors loosing housing, etc.
$150M added to the strike fund would go a long way to fixing that issue.
The studio should be, but that would have to be in the bargaining agreement.
I don't know of any company that pays for regular health benefits for gig work. I've had contract work at a long term site (government contracts) pay for healthcare but never heard it for entertainment.
That would be great for funding health benefits but what about studios using actor's likenesses via AI and not paying them at all. That is the point that sticks out to me.
While I low key think they're just trying to help and who's gonna be mad at that...
They aren't helping.
I mean it is...
Clooney is saying people that make as much as he does should pay more into the union then someone whose had a handful of TV commercials over the last decade.
Having union dues be an uncapped percentage of earnings is basically the same as a progressive tax bracket where the more you earn, the higher percent is paid to taxes.
Flat union dues aren't bad for most vocations. But actors have insane income disparities, all of show biz does.
I would agree. From the outside it makes it look like fragmentation within the union.
Ah, yes, I understand
Booo they edited it out!
so was your comment
Yeah autocorrect thought boo should be boop so here we are.
Now I'm picturing a ghost that boops people on the nose and wails out a spooky "boooooop!" when they do it.
Yep makes perfect sense.
This is the kind of AI-shenanigans I look forward to.
AI?
Looks like a human mistake to me. Simple copy and paste error.
Copy/pasting and every news site has shit to edit out.
My bad for missing that.
All good, it was funny is all, not actually detracting from the read!
Tbh I saw the first comment and couldn't figure out what it was about.
2 hrs later I got it ... 🤣
Actors shouldn't be paying, studios should. If they can pay the top actors big bucks, they should be able to shift some of that money to the rest.
Are they going to give that $150 million every year? Under a contract with SAG-AFTRA? Otherwise, I hope the response is, "nice offer, but no thanks."
Yes, get the studios used to stars chipping in. That's a great idea.
The money is going to AFTRA, not the studios.
Which means the studios can pay less and expect the stars to pick up the slack.
He's offering his money instead of the studios' money. They would absolutely love if the union took that deal.
The lesser of 2 evils.