Academy Museum Gala: Stars Could Sit at $250K Tables “Donated” By Studios, As Execs Keep Away Amid Strike

In 1933, the nascent Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences got here between studio executives and movie employees throughout a labor dispute, and the ensuing backlash virtually led to the group’s collapse, prompting it, in 1937, to alter its bylaws in order that it might not play any position in future labor-related standoffs. Ninety years later, although, the Academy as soon as once more finds itself caught between those self same constituencies.

The Academy Museum Gala, an annual Met Gala-like fundraiser that raises tens of millions of {dollars} important to the sustenance of its younger Academy Museum of Movement Footage, normally attracts Hollywood’s highest-profile executives and stars, who usually sit collectively at $250,000 tables ($25,000 per seat) paid for by studios. Heading in to this yr’s Museum Gala on Oct. 14 — at which honorees anticipated to be in attendance embody Meryl Streep, Oprah Winfrey and Michael B. Jordan, all members of SAG-AFTRA — that dynamic struck many as untenable, given SAG-AFTRA’s ongoing strike towards the AMPTP. (Related issues have already resulted within the postponement of the Academy’s annual Governors Awards from Nov. 18 to Jan. 9, 2024, within the hope that the city will likely be again to enterprise as traditional by then.)

The New York Instances reported on Tuesday, in a narrative that was largely buried by the information of the decision of the WGA’s strike towards the AMPTP, that the Academy Museum’s director and president Jacqueline Stewart had informed them that “given the actual circumstances this yr, there will likely be no executives from struck firms in attendance” at this yr’s Museum Gala.

That raised a couple of questions. The chair of the Academy Museum’s board of trustees is Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, certainly one of Hollywood’s most outstanding executives, however even he won’t be attending the establishment’s flagship occasion? Additionally, all executives didn’t occur to concurrently determine to bow out of attending the occasion, so who coordinated that call? Moreover, did the executives additionally pull their funding for the occasion, or, if not, who will likely be sitting on the tables that the studios paid for? Some actors have been invited to attend the occasion as company of manufacturers that purchased tables, however what about the remainder of them?

THR has realized that it was Sarandos, in a Sept. 18 be aware to his fellow studio executives, who instructed that they keep away amid the strike. He argued that doing so can be one of the best ways of making certain “that the fundraising of this critically essential non-profit shouldn’t be hindered in any approach,” and he urged them to affix him in “donating” their seats again to the Academy Museum, versus asking for a refund.

An Academy Museum official who forwarded Sarandos’ communication to the opposite executives added as an addendum: “We’re kindly asking that you just assist us work together with your groups to focus your tables on inventive expertise solely. Thanks upfront for being delicate and conscious of this as you finalize your visitor lists.”

Sources affirm to THR {that a} guide retained by the Academy Museum is working with studios to guarantee that the individuals who the studios would have invited to sit down at their desk now obtain invites from the Academy Museum — and that the ensuing visitor lists do embody actors.

In different phrases, actors in attendance at this yr’s Museum Gala who should not company of manufacturers that purchased tables — in addition to different inventive artists and different non-execs — could technically be company of the Academy Museum, however could possibly be sitting in seats that had been paid for by studios they’re putting towards. (The Academy declined remark.)

After all, all of those concerns can be rendered irrelevant if the actors’ strike is resolved earlier than Oct. 14.