2026 is on tap to be an extremely consequential year for the entertainment industry, and not only because of the high-profile potential sale of Warner Bros. The new year will include another round of negotiations between the major studios and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA), Writers Guild of America (WGA), and Directors Guild of America (DGA).
The mere possibility of a new labor dispute in the media and entertainment industry is a terrifying prospect, given the extreme damage done by the prolonged strikes in 2023 of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA unions. The issues at hand in the upcoming talks will be different than those from the 2023 negotiations, but they could wind up being equally contested.
One of the major topics will be the status of the health and retirement plans for members of the guilds, and the overall length of a new contract. The health and retirement plans for all three guilds are running at a massive deficit and desperately in need of new funding sources to meet current and future obligations.
Deadline reported last month that the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), representing studios in these negotiations, has stated that it will add up to $100 million in funding to bolster these resources. In return, the AMPTP is asking the guilds to commit to a five-year contract instead of the typical three-year agreement.
The AMPTP maintains that the industry needs the stability of a five-year runway to plan accordingly, while the guilds are opposed to a longer agreement, saying that it would allow the studios to ignore their member’s evolving needs. SAG-AFTRA negotiations will come first, beginning in February, and this week, the union’s chief and lead negotiator, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, said publicly that a strike was “on the table” if necessary to maintain a three-year term. The industry is waiting in anxious anticipation, hoping that these current differences can be ironed out before a possible strike is called.
