00:01Tonight, Hollywood is reeling from the first actor's strike since 1980, the walkout delivering
00:06a devastating blow to TV and film productions that were already paralyzed by a writer's
00:11strike.
00:11CNN's Natasha Chen is covering it all in Los Angeles for us.
00:15Natasha, hard to believe this, but this is the largest labor strike in the U.S. in a
00:19quarter century.
00:20Tell us more.
00:23Yeah, Jim, 160,000 actors now on strike at the same time as the Writers Guild.
00:29That has not happened, a double strike like that since 1960.
00:33Now, productions have already slowed down since the Writers went on strike in early May.
00:38The only shoots that have been going on are ones where the script was already locked in.
00:42But now, with the actors not working, most remaining productions in Hollywood come to a halt.
00:49Stand up!
00:50Fight back!
00:51Stand up!
00:52Fight back!
00:53I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us.
01:00Tonight, actors join writers at odds with major Hollywood studios.
01:05I understand that streaming is such an uncharted territory, but all these millionaires are making
01:10money.
01:10Nobody else is seeing any of that money.
01:12Workers across the country who support productions, from janitors to restaurant owners, also face
01:18uncertainty.
01:19It's kind of scary, and I'm trying to figure out, like, what can I do today to keep it
01:24going?
01:24A-list actors are voicing their support of the strikes.
01:27I'm very much in support of all the unions.
01:30There's money being made, and it needs to be allocated in a way that takes care of people
01:34who are on the margins.
01:36The cast of Oppenheimer walked out of their film premiere.
01:39It's been a really, really tense few days for a lot of people, not just actors, but
01:43everybody in the industry who are going to be affected by this decision.
01:46Along with better pay, actors say residuals for past work have dried up in the streaming
01:50era.
01:51There's a whole middle class of writers and actors that is disappearing because they're
01:55making it more and more difficult to just make a living.
01:57Add to that artificial intelligence, which actors say threatens their future by replacing
02:02them.
02:03They proposed that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get paid for
02:07one day's pay, and their company should own that scan, their image, their likeness, and
02:13should be able to use it for the rest of eternity in any project they want with no consent and
02:18no compensation.
02:19But studios say they've offered the highest percent increase in minimum pay in 35 years
02:24and that actors aren't considering the reality of declining revenues in traditional media,
02:29nor the challenges of streaming services.
02:32There's a level of expectation that they have that is just not realistic, and they are adding
02:37to a set of challenges that this business is already facing that is, quite frankly, very
02:43disruptive.
02:44How they plead poverty, that they're losing money left and right, when giving hundreds
02:49of millions of dollars to their CEOs, it is disgusting.
02:55We spoke with Fran Drescher after the strike was announced.
02:58We really believe that they wanted to make a deal, but in fact, now I feel a little duped.
03:05How far apart are you?
03:07Well, I mean, there's a fairly big gap.
03:09They can make a deal right this minute if they wanted to do that, and we remain ready
03:13and willing to come back to the bargaining tables.
03:20The chief negotiator also told me that the studios told SAG-AFTRA they would not sit down
03:25for talks while a strike is ongoing.
03:26So we're not sure how long this will go on for, and the writers have not made much progress
03:33either in the two months they've been on strike.
03:35I do want to mention this is very much an industry town here.
03:38We've heard lots of stories about how both spouses in a household work in entertainment,
03:43and so this means the loss of both incomes.
03:45In fact, I saw a couple out here on the picket line outside Netflix today holding a sign that
03:50said, we just got married and this is our honeymoon.
03:54Wow, it has to be a crushing blow across Hollywood for so many people out there.
03:58All right, Natasha Chen, thanks very much.
04:00Coming up, law enforcement officials in New York announce a breakthrough in an unsolved
04:04decade-old murder case.
04:05We'll have a live report from Long Island, plus why police say a doorbell video is now
04:10a key piece of evidence in the search for an escaped inmate in Pennsylvania.
04:13You're in the Situation Room.
04:16You're in the Situation Room.
04:16You're in the Situation Room.
04:17You're in the Situation Room.
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