Strike!

Oh no it’s strike time again in the movie industry and no I don’t mean the writers but the actors now. The Screen Actors Guild contract ends on June 30th and many studios are trying their best to get projects wrapped up before that date as it looms near. Chief economist Jack Kyser said “A film shoot interrupted by a strike would be very expensive proposition”.
The same issue the writers had with the movie studios is the same issues actors are dealing with now. Digital distribution is the wave of the future and many actors are not happy with the pay they are receiving, which is little to none. It is stated in the article that “by 2010, the top 100 media companies will collect an estimated $20.7 billion a year in Internet revenue, with advertisers spending $2.9 billion annually on online video ads”.
To me, that is a lot of money to be made by the actors but one must think about what was in the contract they signed. I can understand going forward; this is something they want to be included in future contracts. With all the extra perks they get while on location don’t you think its fair a studio makes some of that back? Whatever the guild decides to do it is going to affect the movie industry as well as the viewers that look forward to new blockbusters.
I read quite a bit of entertainment news, especially when it comes to movie news. The articles I like the most are the ones about the cost of the movie and how much the actors make. Our economy is not in the best of shape and movie studios have to do everything they can make money on their investment. Is that wrong of them to try and recoup some of their losses?
Movies are not cheap to make and when you link a “Big Star” to the movie the cost goes up even more. Take an $80 million dollar movie for example; it is released at the box office and makes only $20 million. That is a $40 million dollar lost for the studio so what do they do release the movie on DVD, and through different internet venues. What I’m getting at is stars make their money right off the top. If the contract says $20 million, they get that but for a studio there is no guaranty that you will see a profit.
URL: http://entertainment.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=311308