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SAG-AFTRA is about to begin a strike effective at midnight PT on July 14, with actors hitting the picket lines bright and early on Friday morning. But while they will be making signs, marching, and making their voices heard around Hollywood studios as early as tomorrow, there’s a lot the union is ordering them not to do. Like the WGA before it, SAG-AFTRA ahead of its strike has issued its formal Strike Rules, a memo (obtained by IndieWire) sent to the guild’s over 160,000 members that outlines the dos and don’ts (mainly don’ts) actors should participate in if they want to show solidarity. Beyond any on-camera work, whether principal or even background or as a stand-in, actors will also be barred from doing promotional work for...

Nominations voting is from January 11-16, 2024, with official Oscar nominations announced January 23, 2024. Final voting is February 22-27, 2024. And finally, the 96th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 10 and air live on ABC at 8:00 p.m. ET/ 5:00 p.m. PT. We update predictions through awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2024 Oscar picks. The State of the Race Half of the Best Original Screenplay winners from the past decade premiered at a festival that occurs during the first six months of the year, so film-goers are probably more informed than they think when faced with predicting which of this year’s scripts could win the Oscar. Looking at what played at Sundance, which often sets the tone for...

Three months after the Writers Guild of America strike shut down many of Hollywood’s biggest shows, SAG-AFTRA brought the rest of the American film and television industry to a screeching halt when it voted to authorize its own strike on Thursday. The concurrent strikes essentially render it impossible for studios to develop, film, or promote projects until new collective bargaining agreements are reached. But for some American productions that film overseas, it will be business as usual on set. HBO plans to continue U.K. productions on Season 2 of “House of the Dragon” and Season 3 of “Industry,” as both shows have casts consisting of British actors who do not work under SAG-AFTRA contracts (via Deadline). Both shows operate the rules...

The actors are likely set to join the writers on strike. The Screen Actors Guild’s (SAG-AFTRA) negotiating committee has voted unanimously to recommend a work stoppage against the studios after the guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) together failed to reach a deal on a new minimum bargaining agreement ahead of their current contract expiring by midnight PT. Their current contract was meant to expire on June 30, but the two sides extended talks until July 12 in an effort to avert a strike. A strike hasn’t been called just yet. SAG-AFTRA’s National Board will meet on Thursday morning to vote on whether to strike. The union will hold a press conference July 13, at 12 noon PT at SAG-AFTRA Plaza in...

This year’s Primetime Emmy nominations once again prove how hard it is to keep up with all the changes in the television landscape. If the narrative last year was about there being too much TV coming out of the pandemic, this year swung in the opposite direction, with shows being canceled and expunged from their home platforms within months of airing, and a complete work stoppage looming due to the ongoing Writers Guild strike, and SAG-AFTRA negotiations still going downhill. Almost fitting that the final season of “Succession,” a beloved satire poking at corporate greed on such a minute level that there is even a plot point about a streaming service’s shaky viewership numbers, be the most nominated show of the year. Here we breakdown...

Star Wars has once again entered to the Emmys, thanks to Tony Gilroy’s exceptional “Andor,” a limited series about the rebel leader played by Diego Luna. “Andor” is the highest-rated live-action Star Wars property (yes, it’s higher than “Empire Strikes Back” on Rotten Tomatoes), and along with “Obi-Wan Kenobi” joins “The Mandalorian” among the rare genre series in the Emmys race. The show garnered a total of eight nominations, including for writing, cinematography, and Outstanding Drama Series. As praise piled on for the political action series, Gilroy told IndieWire in November about the challenges of television versus film, especially for a property so beloved not only by its audience, but by those working tirelessly behind the...

Netflix is making it easier for you to move your Netflix profile data to wherever you end up, whether that’s moving in with a new boyfriend, out of your parents’ basement, or because you got a new roommate. The streamer on Tuesday rolled out a new wrinkle to its existing Profile Transfer feature: you can now transfer your profile to an existing account. When the feature launched back in October, you could only transfer your profile data to a new account. But that posed a challenge if, say, you wanted to use an email address associated with an inactive account, or if you were now being added to your significant other’s plan rather than your parents’ or siblings.’ “People move. Families grow. Relationships end. But throughout these life...

In February, a clip went viral of Steven Spielberg telling Tom Cruise at an Oscars luncheon that he “saved Hollywood’s ass.” Spielberg was referring to the explosive success of Cruise’s return to the pilot seat in “Top Gun: Maverick.” Released in May 2022, the long-awaited sequel was the top earner at the domestic box office last year, raking in over $700 million in the United States. It was the shot in the arm that cinemas needed after the pandemic, and proof positive of Cruise’s enduring appeal as both a marquee movie star and skilled actor — two bona fides not always packaged together so successfully. Cruise has been leveraging looks and charm, and flexing his blockbuster muscles, for decades. Going all the way back to the early...

UPDATE 9:00 PM ET: SAG-AFTRA has agreed to a federal mediator in negotiations with the AMPTP, but the deadline for negotiations remains July 12 at midnight PT. “We will not be distracted from negotiating in good faith to secure a fair and just deal by the expiration of our agreement,” the guild said in a statement. “We are committed to the negotiating process and will explore and exhaust every possible opportunity to make a deal, however we are not confident that the employers have any intention of bargaining toward an agreement.” Original story below: We’re a little under 36 hours away from SAG-AFTRA’s current contract with the film and TV studios expiring and the guild having the power to call for a work stoppage. With the writers...

Rarely in recent years has so much public attention been riveted on three films opening over a single two-week period. Just as “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One” (Paramount) has arrived, and just ahead of the July 21 openings of “Barbie” (Warner Bros. Discovery) and “Oppenheimer” (Universal), hopes for three distinct films changing the trajectory for the summer are sky-high. Ahead of the initial reports on “Mission: Impossible” results from pre-Wednesday previews, here’s a film-by-film analysis of the opportunities and challenges for each film, as well as their combined potential for theaters. “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One” Two things to note ahead: The pre-marketing cost on this latest sequel has been...

Universal is getting deeper into the Steven Spielberg business and will be carrying more of the weight of the movies he produces. Universal and Spielberg’s Amblin Partners are forging a new pact under a multi-year deal, but as part of the new arrangement, Amblin Partners will no longer fully finance its own movies that it produces for Universal, and Universal Pictures will be providing some of the backing for Amblin Partners movies made under the deal. Amblin will continue to produce other movies with rival studios, such as “West Side Story” at 20th Century or “Ready Player One” at Warner Bros., but Universal will have first-look status on all of Amblin’s theatrical projects. The idea is to give the company “more creative and...

So…what is sci-fi? It’s not the easiest question to answer when “sci-fi elements” permeate so many of the biggest blockbusters: thought-provoking genre concepts flattened into one-size-fits-all franchise fodder that make countless titles “feel” and, on occasion, even look the same. Yes, science fiction is rooted in profound origins, examining humanity’s deep-seated fear of itself and the intimidating possibility of worlds unknown. But the last two decades have seen a metaphoric rush on sci-fi storytelling that’s left the once niche subgenre a supersaturated movie market. On the one hand, that’s produced an onslaught of sci-fi(ish) titles that aren’t always up to snuff. But on the other, it’s prompted some of the best sci-fi films ever...

Both on the awards circuit and in the public consciousness, HBO is widely regarded as among the first Hollywood heavyweights to recognize that television, as a medium, had the power to deliver sprawling, large scale stories on a smaller screen. From HBO’s ascent in the late 1990s through its dragon-aided roar across the 2010s, the network’s original series tackled universal stories, stretching across continents and decades. The network hasn’t been without controversy, though. HBO faced questions about its lack of diversity in flagship series, including “Game of Thrones” and “Girls,” throughout the 2010s. And, unshackled from the restrictions of broadcast TV, the various steps the network took to push the limit of what’s allowed on...