Well Now We Don’t Want A New Stargate Announcement

The Screen Actor’s Guild has officially called for a work stoppage for members of the SAG-AFTRA performance guild, after contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) broke down this week. The strike has been authorized and unanimously approved, and will go into effect tonight at midnight.

Filming on major film and TV projects are expected to shut down immediately, and SAG’s 160,000 affected members are asked to refrain from voiceover work, publicity work, and festival appearances — all things that actors are paid for, of course. For science fiction and fantasy projects that includes studio promotional work at the upcoming San Diego Comic-Con, scheduled to begin July 20.

Guild President Fran Drescher had strong words for the studios as negotiations broke down. “We had no choice,” she said Thursday. “We are the victims here. We are being victimized by a very greedy entity. I am shocked by the way the people we have been in business with are treating us. I cannot believe it, quite frankly, how far apart we are on so many things. How they plead poverty, that they’re losing money left and right, while giving millions to CEOs. It’s disgusting. Shame on them.”

Among the studios’ proposals is what they call a “groundbreaking AI proposal” that, according to SAG’s chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, would allow for background performers to be paid one day’s pay and then have their likeness scanned and used in perpetuity in future projects, without further consent or compensation. “If you think that’s a groundbreaking proposal I suggest you think again,” he said.

“The entire business model has been changed by streaming, digital and AI,” Drescher said. “This is a moment of history that is a moment of truth. If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble.”

BAD TIMING

It’s the first film and television actors’ strike since 1980, and the first time since 1960 that both the actors and writers unions have stopped work at the same time. The SAG-AFTRA strike comes 73 days into an already historic strike by members of the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA), which have been picketing the major studios following the expiration of their own contract.

Negotiations include some overlapping concerns about things like streaming residuals and the use of AI for script writing as the technology continues to mature into the future.

For the studios, the contract expirations could not come at a worse time. After years of building up new streaming platforms like Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+, and others — and after clawing back some sense of normalcy in film and television production following the COVID pandemic — in 2023 many major studios are tightening their belts to try and show some payoff to investors. The boom of the streaming age appears to be coming to an end as studios raise subscription prices, drop catalog shows from their services (in part to save on residuals owed to talent), and even cancel outright shows that were already renewed.

In the sci-fi and fantasy world, for example, Snowpiercer is looking for a place to air its completed fourth season after TNT renewed and then dropped the series. Paramount+ just cancelled the animated Star Trek: Prodigy, with its second season still in post production. And HBO Max (now just “Max”) shuffled off a raft of content to third parties, including the once prestige science fiction drama Westworld.

STARGATE ON THE LINE

What does all of this have to do with Stargate, a franchise currently without any projects in active production? We know that Amazon and MGM are looking to relaunch the popular franchise, either with a new show or a movie followed by a series. Last fall various creatives were asked to pitch their take on new Stargate, and at that time our sources said that The Expanse creators Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby emerged as frontrunners.

But Amazon did not announce a green light for the new project as the calendar rolled over into 2023. We hear that there are still differing ideas among studio executives about how to properly bring back Stargate. But a decision would seem to be imminent.

Major fan conventions and media events like San Diego Comic-Con give the studios a large stage to make announcements and tease upcoming projects, and Amazon has said it will have a substantial presence at the event later this month (though many other studios have pulled out entirely). Amazon may have been gambling on the actors not striking, announcing actor-laden panels for new series Gen V (a spin-off of The Boys) and Freevee comedy Jury Duty, plus the return of big-budget genre shows like The Wheel of Time, Invincible, and Good Omens. Now, actors are not permitted by the union to participate in SDCC or other promotional events on behalf of the studios.

That means that if Amazon and MGM were waiting for this year’s SDCC to finally make their Stargate announcement … well, they could still do so, but without any past or future writers or actors at their disposal.

We don’t know whether or not that was the plan, and we probably never will. What we do know is that now is a terrible time to announce new Stargate.

That’s because the creative talents who will one day bring us that show — the writers and showrunners, new cast members, and even guest stars from past shows — are still lacking a contract that will pay them fairly for their work. If a new show was to be announced this month zero additional creative development could commence, no scripts could be written, and certainly no cameras dusted off until the strikes are resolved. Heck, per guild instructions they couldn’t even talk about it on social media.

RISKY BUSINESS

Because the financial commitment that will ultimately be exacted from the studios is still an unknown, projects that are green-lit during this period stand at risk. That’s because shows and films typically have their major deals in place before they are officially announced — including showrunners and often lead actors, but also commitments to a per-episode or per-season production budget. Studios only green-light shows after the bean counters have done the math, and concluded that once everyone is paid there is a profit to be made.

Amazon Studios has the backing of one of the largest companies on the planet, which has enabled them not only to pay a premium for executive salaries but to spend big on marquee shows like The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and The Citadel. What they don’t seem to have to show for these expenditures yet is a hit — a show that not only draws viewers to check it out but penetrates the cultural zeitgeist. A show that has people who tune in religiously for the next episode to drop, who want to go online and talk about it, raise its social media profile, and even … you know, make a Web site.

I’m talking about a show with fans, and not just viewers.

I’ve been a Stargate fan for 29 years, someone who has actively supported this beloved franchise as a content creator for nearly 24 of those. But I don’t want to hear about a new show right now. Not until Amazon and the other studios come to their senses, treat creatives like indispensable partners rather than cogs that might be digitally replaced, and give them a fair deal.

Then we can talk Stargate again.