Thousands of actors are now returning to work after a deal was agreed to end the biggest strike in Hollywood in more than 60 years.
Sag-Aftra, the actors' union, said that it has reached an agreement with the group representing Hollywood studios, Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). The union wanted streaming giants like Netflix and Disney+ to pay them more for the work they do, to provide better working conditions, and to guarantee that Artificial Intelligence (AI) won't replace human actors in the future.
AMPTP said that it was looking forward to the industry resuming the work of telling great stories. US actors are set to start work again after voting to accept a deal with the Hollywood studios.
Fran Drescher, the president of Sag-Aftra, thanked its members for holding out for this historic deal, after being on strike for four months. The union said that the deal was worth more than $1bn (£814m) and included increases in minimum salaries, a new streaming participation bonus, and more protections against their images and voices being copied by artificial intelligence.
AMPTP said that the deal gave Sag-Aftra the biggest contract-on-contract gains in the history of the union. Actors took industrial action alongside writers in July, it was the first time both the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and SAG had been on strike at the same time since 1960.
The writers union reached an agreement with studio bosses in September. The strikes caused major disruption for the film and TV industry in countries like the UK as well as the US.
This affected Live action remakes of Disney animations Moana and Lilo & Stitch, as well as Paddington in Peru and James Cameron's Avatar series.
