Netflix Calls SAG-AFTRA Talks “Ongoing,” Even Though No One’s Talking Right Now

Negotiations between the studios and the striking actors guild may have come to a sudden halt last week, but according to Netflix today everyone is still talking – even when they aren’t.

“The last six months have been challenging for our industry given the combined writers and actors strikes in the US,” the streamer said in its just released third-quarter earnings report  Wednesday. “While we have reached an agreement with the WGA, negotiations with SAG-AFTRA are ongoing,” they oddly added.

“We’re committed to resolving the remaining issues as quickly as possible so everyone can return to work making movies and TV shows that audiences will love.”

On a day that saw stocks stumbling overall, Netflix mainly beat Wall Street expectations with new subscribers and more. But with talks “suspended” by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on October 11, there was nothing ongoing today at the bargaining table.

In fact, no new deliberations between the AMPTP and the CEO Gang of Four and the Fran Drescher-led 160,000-strong union are scheduled, sources have confirmed.

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Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos directly participated in the final successful round of bargaining with the WGA, along with Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav, NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley and Disney’s Bob Iger. Across the table from Drescher and SAG-AFTRA chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland and others, the Gang of Four were also all involved in the talks with SAG-AFTRA from October 2 to October 11, when it all went south-ish.

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As had been the case even in talks before SAG-AFTRA went out on strike with the WGA on July 14, it was the guild’s revenue streaming proposal for cast to share in the financial  rewards of a successful streaming show or film that proved a big pothole for the studios and streamers.

Speaking at a conference on the morning of October 12, Sarandos was far more expressive than Langley, who had been on the same stage just 14 hours before having come from the now derailed deliberations. “Last night, they introduced a levy on subscribers on top of [other] areas,” the Netflix boss told the well-heeled crowd of SAG-AFTRA’s revamping of their own revenue sharing proposal. Justifying suddenly pulling the plug on talks because “conversations are no longer moving us in a productive direction,” Sarandos reiterated a lot of the talking points the AMPTP had put out the night before lambasting SAG-AFTRA for not taking what they had been offered.

At New York Comic Con on October 14, SAG-AFTRA’s Crabtree-Ireland had a pretty raw take on Sarandos’ version of what went down. “Preposterous! It’s preposterous!” he said of the rejection of the revamped revenue sharing proposal. “That’s like saying that workers should be compensated for their work as a tax. That’s wrong. 

With the anticipation that the hair splitting will be that suspended does not mean talks are formally done, Deadline has reached out to Netflix about their “ongoing” statement. No reply yet, but we will update if and when the streamer gets back to us.

SAG-AFTRA members were out on the picket lines in force today, at Netflix and other studio HQs and lots. October 21 will mark the 100th day the actors union has been on strike.