The Screen Actors Guild turned 75 this weekend, but there was not much for the guild to celebrate, as the contract deadline is looming with no deal in site.

The guild probably didn't celebrate Tom Hanks urging ratification of the AFTRA contract, either. See, the leadership is urging AFTRA (a sister union; many actors are in both unions) not to ratify, because ratification might make it more difficult for SAG to negotiate. In fact, it's become something of a battle between SAG and AFTRA. Two weeks ago, in fact, SAG falsely claimed Hanks and George Clooney were anti-AFTRA. If there was any lingering doubt, I think Hanks' signature on the email shattered that.

Tags: AFTRA, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hollywood, SAG, strike, Tom Hanks

The Hollywood Reporter says the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers sat down today for the first time for a series of talks designed at holding off another strike. I wish both sides the best of luck in settling this. If there is a strike however, I sure hope it doesn't beget anything near the disaster last year's Golden Globes inflicted on us. That debacle alone should have convinced the studios to pay up. Without writers, the actors have nothing to say onscreen, but is the inverse true?

When SAG struck in 2000, some believed it caused the current glut of reality TV shows currently making American viewers even dumber. I can envision this time the studios using a more terrifying method I'll call the Sky Captain Method. In Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Laurence Olivier gave a better performance dead than most of his living work in the 70's. Technology has also made Fred Astaire dance with a vacuum cleaner against his will, so who's to say the producers won't use it to give our dearly departed actors work in the same movies SAG actors won't do if they're striking? I'm sure there's some kind of union loophole prohibiting this, but only if SAG has good intellectual property lawyers. The verdict's out on that one. Like colorizing, the method that turned B&W movies into coloring books (and Ol' Blue Eyes into Ol' Brown Eyes in Suddenly), Ted Turner can own this functionality too.

Bette Davis claimed American International Pictures censored her F-worded last line of dialogue in Bunny O'Hare, so I bet her ghost will be happy she's cast in the new Judd Apatow movie, along with Bogie and James Cagney as McShootin'. Boris Karloff will show up in Saw 5 and his fellow horror actor Vincent Price will be in every PG-13 rated rip-off of Japanese horror movies the studios can turn out. If the movies are a hit, SAG will give in; if teenagers start asking why the actors are in black and white and the movie is in color, the producers will cave. Hopefully, both can reach a settlement without feeling the other side was coerced into a settlement. But if not, look out for Al Jolson in Madea Goes To Jail.

Tags: alliance of motion picture and television producers, screen actors guild, strike

Perhaps the intoxicating knowledge that they're working in a fairly recession-proof industry has gone to the heads of those actors at the top of the Screen Actors Guild hierarchy. It's the only thing that could explain why now, when the economy has reached the "crisis" stage and is in the proverbial crapper, would SAG decide to put a strike authorization to vote. Yes, now. Awesome idea, guys!

Tags: actors strike, AFTRA, AMPTP, Hollywood, SAG, Screen Actors Guild, strike, writers strike

It's been awhile since we last told you that nothing had happened in the negotiations between the Screen Actors Guild and the studios. And now we're back to tell you that something is about to happen. We think. On Sunday, the actors union took two major steps forward in the process toward resolution (we hope) or a strike (we fear). First, the SAG board voted to have a federal mediator brought in to try to revive negotiations that stalled in June. SAG's board also has authorized a vote by all members on whether to strike if the mediation doesn't work.

Tags: actors, SAG, strike, union

Even though the economy is in what's cheerily being called a "downturn," you wouldn't know it from the bustle around Hollywood studios lately, with more than 40 films being hustled into production for next spring and summer. Because of the writer's strike and the looming threat of an actor's strike, most studios halted production in late 2007 and, as a result, don't have much of a slate for their 2010-2011 release schedule. The few films that did go into production following the writer's strike had strike protection insurance in case the actors -- who still haven't reached an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) and remain without a new contract -- decided to have a strike of their own. Now desperate to fill theaters with their usual crap in two years, studios are pushing to get movies made, crossing their fingers that the actor's union in-fighting continues.

Tags: 2010, 2011, A-Team, Bioshock, Gears of War, Green Hornet, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Robocop, Sex and the City, Sex and the City 2, strike, Thor, Tron

In Ridley Scott's reimagined version of the Robin Hood tale, it's the guy in the green tights who's a bit dodgy. (Perhaps even dodgier than Kevin Costner's accent in Prince of Thieves.) The Sheriff of Nottingham, as played by Russell Crowe, is supposed to be the sympathetic bloke. Even still, the good ol' sheriff didn't have the angels on his side when production on Nottingham was shut down this past weekend. According to The Hollywood Reporter, filming, which was to have begun in mid-August, "has been postponed indefinitely." It's not a tights famine or a dearth of merry men that's holding up things, but the triple threat of a possible SAG strike, lack of cooperation from Mother Nature, and a script rewrite. Such adversaries don't seem terribly exciting, considering the swashbuckling subject matter, but these days they're far more formidable than anything with a bow and arrow.

Tags: Nottingham, Ridley Scott, Robin Hood, Russell Crowe, SAG, Sienna Miller, strike

That sound you just heard was a bunch of fingers crossing and teeth clenching coming from the general direction of Hollywood. That other sound you just heard was all of those same people saying simply, "Oh, shit." The Screen Actors Guild announced on Wednesday that it had set January 2nd as the date to send out its strike authorization ballots to its 120,000 members. The result of the vote will be announced on January 23rd, and if 75% of SAG members vote yes, then Hollywood could face its second major work stoppage in just over a year.

Tags: AMPTP, contract, negotiations, SAG, screen actors' guild, strike