Outfest Honorees Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone to Skip LGBTQ Film Fest Due to SAG-AFTRA Strike

Billy Porter is taking some drastic measures due to the SAG-AFTRA strike, revealing that the lack of employment has forced him to place his house on the market.

Jamie Lee Curtis is expressing her full support for the SAG-AFTRA strike after she was criticized for comments she made earlier in the week.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Jamie Lee Curtis doesn’t pretend to know when she thinks the SAG-AFTRA strike will end. “I have no idea,” the Oscar winner told me Thursday morning at Project Angel Food’s groundbreaking ceremony for The Chuck Lorre Family Foundation Campus in Los Angeles. However, Curtis says she remains “hopeful” that the actors union and AMPTP can find common ground.” “I’m hopeful that we can all see all sides.

As the SAG-AFTRA strike enters its second month with no end in sight, joining the WGA strike that began in May, some of Hollywood’s biggest stars have been taking to picket lines to support the unions.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Photographer and author Maxwell Poth’s gallery exhibit, “Young Queer America,” now at the Los Angeles LGBT Center, serves as a companion to his book of the same name, which features a collection of portraits and essays from young people across the United States. “I want every single queer person, especially every single queer kid to know this book exists,” the Los Angeles-based Poth said at the exhibit’s opening on July 29.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Bethenny Frankel has enlisted two of the most high-profile attorneys in Hollywood to help in her self-proclaimed fight to help protect reality stars from what she says is exploitation by networks and studios. Power players Bryan Freedman and Mark Geragos are now working alongside Frankel to investigate the treatment of reality stars. Freedman tells me that he has heard from roughly 50 reality show cast members from various docuseries and competition shows who believe that they were “used and unfairly” treated by television networks and streamers.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Prince Royal, an actor in Los Angeles, was working as an extra on “The Flash” when he was directed to a tractor trailer to “take pictures.” Inside were hundreds of cameras. He stood with his arms up as the operators took a 3-D scan, which he was told would be used for continuity and special effects. “We were told if we didn’t do it, we’d be sent home without pay,” he said.

officially went on strike after they were unable to reach an agreement with major Hollywood studios and streamers by the July 12 deadline. Because of this, nearly all productions in Hollywood have been forced to shut down, which have already had an immediate impact in the industry with canceled premieres, axed publicity tours, delayed projects and abandoned sets.Actors like Jason Sudeikis, Susan Sarandon, Olivia Wilde, Allison Janney, Josh Gad, Ginnifer Goodwin, Josh Dallas, Mandy Moore, Ben Schwartz and Sharon Lawrence were among those joining the writers — who have been on strike since May 2 — on the picket line beginning July 14.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor The Toronto Film Festival is at a critical moment after three difficult years following the COVID-19 pandemic, but “the festival will take place,” says Cameron Bailey, CEO of TIFF. TIFF has typically been a star-studded affair and staple of awards season. However, what the red carpets at the gala premieres and tribute ceremonies that have gone to significant A-listers like Kate Winslet will ultimately look like, remains unknown. The longtime festival director doubled down on moving forward with this year’s festival, whether the big stars are in attendance or not. This comes amid ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes that have halted the Hollywood industry, putting the remaining months of movies and TV shows into unknown territory.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Tony Vinciquerra, chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures, took a guarded tone in talking about the SAG-AFTRA strike during an industry panel in Italy on Friday. But it was clear that he hopes it will be over soon. “We are very dismayed about having these strikes” said Vinciquerra, referring to the combined WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes that mark the second time in Hollywood history that actors have joined writers on the picket lines. “We want to make a deal,” the Sony chief went on, adding: “Even though there have been a lot of headlines saying the opposite.”

Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone have scotched plans to pick up a prestigious honor at Outfest, the Los Angeles LGBTQIA+ film festival, and it’s all down to the actors strike.

“Thanks to the SAG strike, I’m the most famous person here,” joked Kevin Smith at a San Diego Comic-Con panel for Netflix/Mattel’s Masters of the Universe: Revolution.

Disney CEO Bob Iger already made his perspective clear about the ongoing guild strikes last week before the SAG-AFTRA one commenced. Now it’s Netflix CEO’s Ted Sarandos‘ turn.

Anne Hathaway, Jenna Ortega, Matthew McConaughey and others, are still shooting in the U.S. and overseas.

Leonardo DiCaprio is standing with his fellow actors. The  star took to his Instagram Stories to show his support not long after it was announced that SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild — American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) formally approved a strike upon negotiations falling apart between the actors' union and major Hollywood studios and streamers, who are represented by the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers).The actors will now join the writers on the picket line, marking the first time since 1960 that two major guilds will be striking at the same time.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer SAG-AFTRA and the major studios remain at odds on a dizzying array of issues, as film and TV actors hit the picket lines Friday for the first time since 1980. According to sources on both sides, the biggest sticking point is the union’s demand for 2% of the revenue generated by streaming shows. The two sides also remain far apart on basic increases in minimum rates, with the studios offering 5%, 4% and 3.5% across the three years of the contract, while the union is demanding 11%, 4% and 4%. But that only scratches the surface. The parties are at odds on dozens of issues, only a handful of which have been publicly reported.

William Earl During a press conference Thursday, SAG-AFTRA leadership announced that the union was going on strike, and picketing started up Friday. In New York, the four locations were announced as HBO / Amazon, Warner Bros. Discovery / Netflix HQ, Paramount and NBC Universal. In Los Angeles, 8 sites were announced, including Warner Bros., Amazon / Culver Studios, Fox, Paramount, Netflix, Sunset / Gower, Disney and Sony. Corporate greed was at the center of messaging on day one of joint picketing from SAG-AFTRA and the WGA. When the bus carrying SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher and the rest negotiating committee arrived outside of Netflix offices, they were mobbed by media and fellow protesters as they inched their way down the sidewalk along Sunset Boulevard.

George Clooney is speaking out about the SAG-AFTRA strike.One day after the actors' union officially ratified their strike, with performers walking off sets and out of promotional events for their upcoming projects, Clooney issued a statement to ET, calling the strike a major turning point in the history of Hollywood.«This is an inflection point in our industry,» the actor and director said in his statement. «Actors and writers in large numbers have lost their ability to make a living.

Production has paused on Deadpool 3 following SAG-AFTRA’s decision to move forward with strike action last night.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor The SAG-AFTRA strike didn’t officially start until just after midnight on Friday, but Amandla Stenberg skipped the opening night of Outfest L.A. on Thursday in support of the movement. The star of the upcoming “Star Wars” series “The Acolyte” was expected to be on hand to receive the Platinum Maverick Award from the LGBTQ film festival, but Jacqueline Castel, director of the actor’s new indie, “The Animal,” accepted it on her behalf. “Amandla is deeply honored and would love to be here to celebrate with you, but she cannot be here today due to her support of the actors strike,” Castel said.