Producers’ Pessimistic on Actor Talks

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A bargaining group for Hollywood’s largest movie and television companies on Wednesday told its members, in effect, not to expect a breakthrough in stalled talks with the Screen Actors Guild before their scheduled end on Friday, the New York Times reprots.


“Although both parties have spent considerable time in the negotiating room, we are not yet close to an agreement,” said the message, posted by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on its Web site.


The statement and an accompanying critique of positions taken by the guild set the stage for a new and more difficult phase in the showdown between actors and producers over a contract to replace the current deal, which expires June 30.


A walkout by the actors could easily wreak more economic havoc than the recent 100-day strike by Hollywood writers. Without actors, nearly all television and movie production (save reality shows) would instantly grind to a halt, whereas during the writers’ strike, TV shows and movies were able to work for weeks with scripts already in hand.


As the producers prepared to open talks on Monday with another actors’ union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, it appeared increasingly likely that any deal with the Screen Actors Guild would remain weeks away and might be forged only under the pressure of an expiring deadline.


In talks over the last three weeks, the producers association and the actors guild have remained at odds over sharply conflicting approaches to compensation for new media and over a guild demand to double residual payments from DVDs. The DVD concession is something the Writers Guild of America West and the Writers Guild of America East were unable to win.



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