Hollywood Strike Ends

The “truce” agreement will bring many benefits to actors and screenwriters.

This strike is unprecedented in the history of American cinema, both in terms of the number of participants and the duration. It pushed Hollywood into a real crisis, creating a very unfavorable precedent for film production corporations and very beneficial for actors and screenwriters in the United States. It encouraged actors and screenwriters in other parts of the world to confidently fight for their legitimate rights. Because of this strike, the American film industry has been almost completely stagnant for the past 4 months. Many people are unemployed. American cinema is absent from many important international film festivals. The state of California in the United States suffered a loss of about 6 billion USD.

The “battle” in Hollywood ended thanks to an agreement reached between the Hollywood film production corporations and the unions and associations of actors and screenwriters. An agreement could only be reached when the conflicting parties compromised and made concessions to each other. Therefore, the key content of this agreement was to increase the remuneration of actors and screenwriters, which was of course not equal, but there was a certain difference between actors and screenwriters. The strikers did not get the level of salary increase they had demanded, but they did get an increase in their remuneration.

Another noteworthy thing about this “ceasefire” agreement is that the film production corporations must allow the striking side to have a share of the huge profits earned from commercializing film works on digital technology platforms such as Netflix or YouTube... In addition, these corporations must also commit to not using artificial intelligence to “imitate” the image, acting or voice of movie actors or simulate movie scripts.

These contents of the “truce” agreement in Hollywood make this film capital and the American film industry no longer the same, and can even have a very strong impact on other film industries in the world. It brings about revolutionary changes to the relationship between actors and screenwriters with film production corporations in the United States.

From a legal perspective, this new development is not illogical. A film is made thanks to the efforts of many people and the cooperation of many parties. Until now, the common concept has been that a film belongs to those who paid for its production, and all other parties are just hired hands, and therefore have no part in the subsequent commercialization process. The recent strike in Hollywood has completely changed that concept.

From a cultural perspective, this “war” in Hollywood will make society, public opinion and the public look at the relationship between creative work in cinema and the act of investing money in making cinema works in Hollywood in a different way. Thanks to this struggle for rights, workers in the American film industry are viewed more correctly, more objectively and more fairly. Hollywood has become one of the symbols of America in the world, an important and decisive element of the so-called “soft power” of America.

Hollywood has “ceasefired,” but the effects of the “war” will probably linger.

HONG HANH

Source