Few issues in this fall film festival season have been as contentious as the interim agreement.
The waivers, handed out by SAG-AFTRA to allow union members to promote their films at Venice, Toronto and Telluride, have divided the indie industry, with some seeing the agreements as a key means of supporting non-AMPTP projects and others complaining that the conditions of the waivers put undue burdens on producers and sales companies trying to make deals with distributors on finished films.
One of the conditions of the waiver is that distributors comply with SAG-AFTRA demands, including on the subject of subscription revenue and residuals, issues that the studios and streamers have rejected in negotiations with the union. Producers and sales agents are reporting that the majors and global platforms are refusing to consider waivered projects, closing off a major revenue option for independent productions.
Venice will be the first big test of the impact of the SAG waivers. On Thursday, two of this year’s hottest festival tickets — Michael Mann’s Ferrari and Luc Besson’s Dogman — arrived, interim agreements in place, to drum up interest in the films.
At the press conference for Ferrari, a biopic about legendary Italian race car designer Enzo Ferrari, Adam Driver and Mann expressed their solidarity for the dual strike, with Driver — who plays Ferrari in the film — suggesting it was ridiculous that the majors should be balking at accepting the SAG-AFTRA conditions.
“Why is it that a smaller distribution company like Neon or STX International [who are distributing Ferrari] can meet the dream demands of what SAG is asking for in this pre-negotiation, but a big company like Netflix and Amazon can’t?” Driver asked. “Every time people from SAG go and support a movie that has agreed to these terms — the interim agreement — it just makes it more obvious that these people are willing to support the people that they collaborate with, and the others are not. So when this opportunity came up, it seemed like — understanding the interim agreement — a no-brainer for all of these reasons of why you want to support your union.”
Mann noted that his long-in-development project was only made because everyone on the crew, “including Adam and myself” forwent big salaries in order to get the film done. “It was not made by a big studio — no big studio wrote us a check. And that’s why we’re here, standing in solidarity,” the director said.
The team behind Dogman made a similar calculation, acquiring a SAG interim agreement to allow the film’s talent, including lead Caleb Landry Jones, to attend to promote the movie. Conversations with potential U.S. distributors were reportedly underway for the film — which is being billed as a comeback for Lucy and The Fifth Element director Besson — but were paused when the strike was called, as it would have meant the cast wouldn’t have been able to attend Venice and the movie would not have enjoyed the promotional spotlight an A-list festival provides.
But Richard Linklater’s Hit Man, an action comedy starring Top Gun: Maverick breakout Glen Powell, which premieres in Venice next week, decided to go the other route and forgo a SAG waiver to keep its options open when it comes to negotiating domestic distribution.
“People are taking different strategies right now, some counting on stars at the festivals to get their movies noticed, others betting that what really matters is a big deal with a studio or streamer,” said one international sales exec with several titles in the fall festival lineup. “In a few months’ time, we’ll find out who was right.”
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