SAG-AFTRA has struck interim agreements with three AMC series — two spinoffs in the Walking Dead franchise and Interview With the Vampire — to resume production.
The three shows are the highest-profile TV projects to date to land interim agreements during SAG-AFTRA’s strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which is in its seventh week. The actors union has reached interim agreements with several hundred productions, most of them independent of the major studios and streamers, since the strike began in mid-July.
AMC Networks, whose AMC Studios produces all three shows, is not an AMPTP member but is an “authorized” by the alliance, meaning AMC agrees to abide by any contracts between the AMPTP and industry unions. The agreements — for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (which will feature the returns of Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira to the franchise) and Interview With the Vampire — are only for those three productions and doesn’t include any other AMC show.
Daryl Dixon filmed some of its second season in France in the spring and early summer before a planned hiatus that coincided with the start of the SAG-AFTRA strike. It will be resume production, as will Interview With the Vampire likewise, which will pick up filming season two in Prague after shutting down when the strike began.
The Ones Who Live, which will reintroduce Rick Grimes (Lincoln) and Michonne (Gurira) after both left the flagship series several years ago, finished filming before the strike, but the interim agreement will allow the cast to do some postproduction work like additional dialogue recording.
SAG-AFTRA’s interim agreements have generated some controversy, with a few union members saying they go against the spirit of the strike. Productions that sign the agreements agree to terms that are in line with the union’s most recent contract proposal before the strike began, which includes an 11 percent bump in minimum wages and revenue sharing for streaming projects.
On Aug. 14, SAG-AFTRA modified the agreements, saying it won’t offer them to productions covered by a Writers Guild of America contract that are produced in the United States.
Among the other TV projects that have struck interim agreements are biblical drama The Chosen, docuseries Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction and Tehran from Apple TV+.
All three AMC series are slated to air in 2024. AMC Networks CEO Kristin Dolan said on the company’s quarterly earnings call that AMC and its sister networks have enough programming stocked to carry well into next year before the pipeline dries up.
Aug. 31, 12:48 p.m. An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated AMC Networks’ relationship to the AMPTP.
Source: Hollywood
