The future looks dire in Hollywoodland after SAG-AFTRA officially joined the WGA behind the picket line, effectively shutting down any productions that were still ongoing. Members of both unions have been protesting in solidarity outside Netflix headquarters since Thursday, and with tensions on the rise, it doesn’t look like they’ll be moving anywhere else any time soon.
Not even the Emmys could offer Netflix executives some solace. Despite collecting a whopping 103 nods on Wednesday, the streamer still trailed behind HBO/Max’s 127 nominations and doesn’t look like a big favorite in any of the major categories. Beef, Dahmer, and Wednesday received most of the love from the Academy, with the latter’s placement in the comedy category making everyone question if they’d watched the right show.
SAG strike means The Sandman can no longer continue filming without creator Neil Gaiman
The studios might have found a way around the writers’ strike to continue production on projects with finished scripts, but with the Actors’ Guild also walking out, they have no choice but to halt activities. This is good news for the writers who had to witness the shows and films they wrote go into production without being able to intervene or contribute to rewrites.
This is the case with Neil Gaiman, the creator of The Sandman, and his writing team, who were in the middle of the strike when the Netflix show kicked off principal photography. At the time, Gaiman said he would not allow non-unionized writers to come in and make necessary adjustments, but the cameras continued to roll on the fantasy drama.
As soon as SAG-AFTRA decided to join forces with its fellow industry union, Gaiman immediately confirmed production on season two of The Sandman was paused. A relief to fans who had feared that the lack of involvement by the writer of the source material in the making of the show’s second outing would result in an unfaithful adaptation.
An anecdote from an Orange Is the New Black star hits the nail on the head regarding actors’ plight
The WGA and SAG-AFTRA both seem to agree that studio heads and executives are only interested in deals that benefit them at the expense of all other professionals working on television and film sets. The strikes may be recent, but the pot has been close to boiling over for years now as an old story from one of the shows that helped build Netflix’s brand in its heyday demonstrates.
Lea DeLaria, who played Big Boo on Orange Is the New Black, told The New Yorker recently about the time when current Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos toasted to the viewership of the show surpassing that of Game of Thrones at a pre-party for the SAG Awards. DeLaria said the cast found the statistic puzzling given how thin their salaries were. “We were keenly aware that we weren’t being paid,” she said, adding that she makes 20 dollars in residuals. Sarandos, of course, makes at least $20 million a year.
HBO might have more Emmy nods, but Wednesday still beat out House of the Dragon
There were several questionable choices among this year’s Emmy nominees, but the public can’t comprehend Netflix’s hit Addams family teen spin-off Wednesday bagging 12 nominations, to become 2023’s 9th most nominated show, including Oustanding Comedy Series and Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. What’s more, the Jenna Ortega-led horror-comedy received four more nominations than the Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon, which has been lauded as one of the best shows of the past year.
Others were just confused about how exactly the show qualified as a comedy. The drama category is so packed this year, that Wednesday would not have found a place among the final nominees had it campaigned for it instead. Poker Face, Shrinking, and What We Do In the Shadows are some of the names netizens would have preferred to see receive the honor.
Netflix also received 13 nods for both Beef and Dahmer, mainly in the categories related to Limited or Anthology Series, 7 nods for Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet Of Curiosities, and 6 nominations each for Queer Eye, Stranger Things, and The Crown. The streamer’s only nominations in the Drama categories were for The Crown for Outstanding Drama Series and Elizabeth Debicki for Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.