Searching for Someone to Deliver a Hollywood Ending
Summary
“Back in the day, it was Lew Wasserman who would enter the talks and move them along,” said Jason E. Squire, professor emeritus at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, referring to the superagent turned studio mogul. Agents and lawyers are engaged in a flurry of back-channel phone conversations, encouraging union leaders and studio executives to soften their unmovable positions; Bryan Lourd, the Creative Artists Agency heavyweight, asked the Biden administration and Gov. Mr. Iger, who returned to run Disney in November after a brief retirement, became a picket line piñata last week after telling CNBC that, while he respected “their right and their desire to get as much as they possibly can,” union leaders were not being “realistic.” The backdrop of his interview, a meeting of elite media and technology executives in Sun Valley, Idaho, poured gasoline on the moment. The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, last week called the actors’ strike “an urgent issue that must be resolved, and I will be working to make that happen.” A spokesman did not respond to queries about what she was specifically doing. The actors’ union, in particular, has made it clear that a new contract must go back to a version of the old way — with streaming services using pay formulas that are based on the popularity of shows and movies, the way traditional television channels have done for decades, with Nielsen as an independent measuring stick.