Exasperated Producers Say It Louder: We’re Not the AMPTP

On Tuesday morning, a letter signed by over 2,300 movie and TV producers was despatched to the president of the group that bargains on behalf of studios and streamers with Hollywood unions, the Alliance of Movement Image and Tv Producers. Its message to AMPTP chief Carol Lombardini: Please take away the phrase “producers” out of your group’s title.

The letter, a duplicate of which was shared with The Hollywood Reporter, defined that “the inclusion of ‘Producers’ in your title inaccurately implies that each one producers are a part of this group,” and famous that not one of the unbiased producers who signed are members of the AMPTP. The letter continued that whereas AMPTP member corporations “could technically ‘produce’ movie and tv within the verb definition of the phrase, the noun producer displays a job and function on a movie and tv crew that’s not what the AMPTP member corporations or their staff do.” (Deadline first reported the petition on Tuesday.)

The AMPTP negotiates on behalf of tons of of manufacturing corporations throughout dozens of ongoing labor contracts, and is led by eight “Class A” members, which at present embody Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Sony, Netflix, Amazon, Apple and Warner Bros. Discovery. 

In accordance with letter signatories together with Jason Blum (M3GAN), Effie Brown (Expensive White Individuals), Nina Jacobson (The Starvation Video games), Dede Gardner (She Stated), Todd Black (The Equalizer 3) and Stacey Sher (The Hateful Eight), the AMPTP has “unjustly lumped producers into the group’s positions” and that the negotiations have “led to confusion” and “negatively have an effect on producers in a number of methods beond their management.” THR has requested the AMPTP for touch upon the letter.

That unbiased producers should not part of the AMPTP is a drum that many within the function have been beating for years amid myriad labor battles, although producers had been significantly outspoken concerning the subject in the course of the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes. The work stoppages, involving tens of 1000’s of actors and writers, thrust the often-opaque commerce group the AMPTP into the highlight. Following remarks that Sean Penn made at Cannes Movie Competition in Could, wherein he confused the Producers Guild of America commerce group with the AMPTP, satirically calling the previous the “Bankers’ Guild,” PGA presidents Stephanie Allain (Hustle & Circulation) and Donald De Line (Prepared Participant One) clarified the distinction between the 2 organizations in a THR as-told-to visitor column. “We’re a group of particular person producers, versus a group of for-profit corporations,” they defined.

Tuesday’s letter, then again, originated with a Change.org petition from the Producers Union, a gaggle of inventive fiction movie producers that’s making an attempt to arrange for the aim of collective bargaining. Producers, who’re largely non-union, would not have one go-to healthcare answer, minimal wage charges or different advantages which might be attribute of organized labor. “We’re not representatives of the struck corporations. Most of us don’t have offers with them. Most of us don’t have our payments paid by them. We’re not on the desk the negotiations. So we actually wished to begin altering that narrative and it’s simply slowly taken off,” explains Laura Lewis (Inform Me Lies), a Producers Union government committee member and one of many organizers of the letter. She provides, “We have now simply as many points with these member corporations as they [writers and actors] do.”

In an announcement on Tuesday, the PGA stated, “The Producers Guild helps the efforts of the Producers Union and all producers advocating for the essential rights of producers together with honest compensation, entry to important advantages and healthcare.”

The Producers Union, an effort that launched in 2021 amid challenges offered to the occupation by the COVID-19 pandemic, has solely 100-200 members to date. “The primary couple of years had been [about] ratifying a structure and determining the legalities of it,” says Lewis. “I’d say we’re now in section two, which is rising the membership and we’re nonetheless in early nascent levels of that, however we want numbers with the intention to get assist and that’s the objective.”

To this point, the AMPTP has not responded to the letter, based on organizers, and Lewis admits that she doesn’t know if the group ever will. “We’d like to have a dialog with Carol [Lombardini], but when at a minimal we simply elevate extra consciousness about the truth that there may be this distinction and in addition that producers don’t get the naked minimal that each different guild member will get, then we’ve began making a case for our trigger.” She added, “In order that’s our final objective, is to make extra individuals conscious of our plight, too.”