Gilmore Girls Star Blasts Disney CEO Amid Dual Strikes: ‘Maybe You Should Take a Look in the Mirror’
Longtime Gilmore Girls second banana Sean Gunn is taking center stage on the SAG-AFTRA picket lines with his fiery rhetoric directed at Hollywood’s aristocracy.
On Friday, the actor behind Stars Hollow’s ever-eccentric Kirk Gleason took aim at his quasi-Guardians of the Galaxy boss, Disney CEO Bob Iger, in the wake of the exec saying striking actors and writers are not being “realistic” with their demands.
“[Iger] needs to remember that in 1980, CEOs like him made 30 times what their lowest worker was making,” Gunn vented to an AP reporter (watch here). “Now Bob Iger makes 400 times what his lowest worker [earns]. And I think that’s a shame.”
Speaking to Iger directly, Gunn continued, “Maybe you should take a look in the mirror and ask yourself, ‘Why is that?’ And, ‘Is it OK? Is it morally OK. Is it ethically OK that you make that much more than your lowest worker?’ If your response is, ‘That’s just how business is done now,’ well that sucks and that makes you a s—ty person.”
Also on Friday, Gunn lashed out at Netflix — home to all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls as well as the 2016 revival Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.
“I wanted to come out and protest Netflix because I was on a television show called Gilmore Girls for a long time that has brought in massive profits for Netflix,” Gunn told The Hollywood Reporter. “It has been one of their most popular shows for a very long time, over a decade. It gets streamed over and over and over again, and I see almost none of the revenue that comes into that.”
A day later, Gunn — who says he received pushback for not specifying that “my residuals aren’t paid by Netflix, but… by Warner Bros” — clarified his comments in a Twitter video.
“OK, first of all, I never used the word ‘residuals’ in my interview, but that’s not the important thing,” Gunn explained. “The important thing is that the whole point of my interview is that Netflix doesn’t pay residuals to the actors, so there’s no sharing in the success of a show with Netflix. It’s true that they pay a licensing fee to Warner Bros. and that Warner Bros. then pays residuals from that licensing fee, which is a very small amount, particularly for a show that’s been off the air for a long time. But when the show is a huge success, and they generate millions of dollars in profits for Netflix, we don’t share in any of that, in large part because there’s no transparency with their numbers.
“Really, this is about fairness for everybody,” he concluded. “We just want to make sure we have a fair deal. If a show’s a success, we should participate in that. That seems totally reasonable.”
The streaming issue, to me, is the real key of the strikes. The CEO pay is a legit beef, and it says a lot about both minimum/entry level pay and outsized executive compensation. Minimum/entry wages need to rise, and CEO compensation needs to shrink (or taxes on those huge salaries need to rise).
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But streaming is the real problem. Older shows are what keeps the lights on. No one is ordering NF, or Disney+, or whatever streaming service for the “new stuff.” Those are nice, but what folks pay for is unfettered access to older shows and movies. Friends is huge on its streaming services, and it was one of the older shows that kept the lights on at NF during its early years. Disney+ is only doing as well as its doing because parents are desperate to have older movies/shows to keep their kids calm.
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And the streaming services don’t like paying the OG creators for these older programs. Streaming is a type of TV, but the services claim it isn’t. Which is bull feces.
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But the thing is, if they have to pay residuals on streamed programs/movies, the services collapse. They’d have to add commercials and raise prices, which would kill the services. I guess they could keep new stuff commercial free, but Friends (for example) would have to have commercialsl
Not sure you can say that people don’t sub for new stuff, they certainly do but there is this mistake that the actors and writers make when they act like streaming services are making lots, they are all running on negative cash flow as in general costs to acquire old content and the costs to commission new content are greater (shows have got more expensive to make and as streaming has killed studios secondary income streams as people aren’t watching syndication as much, aren’t buying home media and they can’t sell them internationally in the same way as streaming services want global rights. As such they require a greater percentage of production costs to be covered by the commissioning outlet) and they make less per customer than tradition tv stations do. Without us the customer paying even more than cable cost and seeing even more ads (as online ads on streaming pay much lower than the same ad on broadcast) they can’t really pay what broadcast did and even then they would need to scale back old content acquisitions and new commissions which doesn’t help those in the industry, especially those with low profile (and Sean gunn while not a major star almost certainly falls in the upper end just because he is guaranteed work due to his brother) who would find their jobs no longer existing. Both sides need to actually understand the other which they don’t seem to, they both seem to believe myths about the other side
Absolutely. I didn’t want to get into the finances of the streaming services, because my post was already long enough. But you make an excellent point. Most of these streaming services are losing money already. Having to pay residuals would devastate the financial situations of the streaming services.
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We can see the future already. Raising costs, as well as eventually adding commercials to existing shows. New shows wouldn’t have commercials for, let’s say, 6 months to a year from the date of their premier on the service. But eventually they would. You’d probably be able to pick 6-8 movies and have them be commercial free. I’m just spit balling. But they are going to have to find a way to raise earnings on these services. If they have to pay residuals on past shows, there will be no practical way to achieve profitability on these services.
Except there are new content like “Wednesday” that breaks through, and becomes big, and might get people to sign up. But then there are those who might subscribe for say football season or a certain series then drop and go onto a new streaming service, and do the same thing. Because there are so many streaming services. And they can cause a pretty penny when you add it up. And in this day. But also streaming has a nasty habit of only doing shows for a number of seasons and then dropping it. So, no wonder residuals can be low. Compared to a network show. Like NCIS who has been around 20 years…
Fair point about shows like Wednesday, and Stranger Things, and Handmaid’s Tale. I was exaggerating to make a point, and I didn’t do a good job of it. A more precise theory would be that the vast majority of long term subscribers pay for the service, long term, becuase of the old stuff. I’d bet that there are folks that wait pay for a service for a month or so, and catch up on all the original content during that brief window.
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And the streamers DGAF about those types of subscribers. They’ll take the money, but they want long term subscribers. And those are almost entirely about the old content. Which, if the streaming service doesn’t have to pay for, or gets a sweetheart deal from a different branch of the same parent company, is extremely cheap.
Why is wrong for Iger to make $27M as the head of Disney that makes the Marvel movies but it is not wrong for RDJ to make $50M starring in a Mavel movie?
The reality is background actors need a union separate from the big stars as those stars are taking up 1/6-1/3 of a Movies production budget, which is greedy nonsense that is preventing the rest of the production from getting good pay. Yet all the background actors think they will one day be the big star and so do not want to fight against it!
Let’s be real: The top 1% of the entertainment industry should definitely take a pay cut to help the little guy. However that 1% also includes actors! I know Mr. Gunn isn’t one of them of course. The vast majority of household name actors probably aren’t either, especially TV stars of the post-Friends/Seinfeld era. But there are still actors who get paid ten million and up for doing the same exact job as their lesser paid costars. By taking that money they’re tacitly part of the studio racket, trading on their name and reputation to bring in audiences. Actors have jeopardized entire productions with many jobs over their individual salaries. Writers could never earn so much simply for coming aboard a project; they would have to either own part of the IP or also be a producer. I hope the actors come forward and set a good example.
Bankable stars make money for the studios, they are commodities.
And it is a collaborative effort. Friends was well written. But the chemistry and performances enhanced the end product. If you change even one actor out, the show might not last a single season.
I don’t think there is any other job that gives you residuals for work done, it’s not like they are still working on the show they got paid for. If a guy makes parts for an engine that goes into a semi that trucks good around the country, he doesn’t residuals from ever delivery that truck makes. I just don’t get it. i know it sounds like i’m taking sides but i’m not it just doesn’t make sense to me.
That truck doesn’t have the part maker’s image on it. Shows and movies do, and are exploiting the actor’s image. Hence that is why that happens. Also, the writers are an integral part of developing it. Again, a major difference between that and the truck parts makers.
Writers get royalties on their books long after they wrote them and the “work” was done. They don’t call it residuals, but it’s still money for work that was complete a while ago. But people are buying the books and reading them well after the writing was done, just like people are buying streaming services to watch shows or movies that were completed well before. If you want to upend the entire way publishing works (Amazon has done a good job of that already, since they made used books with no royalties so readily available) then fine, get rid of royalties and residuals and pay authors and actors and everybody else a living wage. But the system has been built this way, to give creators some benefit if their work reaches a large audience. Work for hire (pay me once for work, whether it’s a flop or a mega-hit) doesn’t take into consideration how much money the work makes for the big wigs. Creators are not fast-food workers, no matter how much the top brass would like to think so.
That is completely different. Writing a book or play involves copyright laws on something you created. Acting is performing in a production someone else created and agreeing on a salary for doing so. Residuals are appropriate for writers but not for performers. JMO
1. Used book stores have been around forever.
2. Authors get pirated like crazy on the internet,
3. Most authors will tell you they make less than minimum wage on their books. Like actors, it’s the top 1% that make money.
4. If you want to complain about how Amazon treats authors, complain about their return policy. People will buy books, read them, then return them. Do that at the library, y’all.
Working as a Hollywood actor is different from most other jobs. It’s the original “gig economy.” You have a TV or movie role some of the time, and the rest of the time, you’re hustling to find work, and need the residuals to live on. That’s how it’s worked for a long time, but the lack of residuals from streaming threw a wrench into it.
That’s like asking the owner of an office tower to pay the builder a part of the rent. You “built” the artistic product and was paid for such. Enough.
If the main reason people want to rent those office suites is because it was made by a famous architect, and the architect’s name and picture is on every brochure, commercial, and billboard advertising the office space then yes, the architect SHOULD get ongoing compensation from the rental revenue. People are lining up to get the space because of the architect, just as people go see movies in many cases because of the stars. Do you honestly think the Barbie movie would be such a hot ticket if it had two complete unknowns as Barbie and Ken? Absolutely not. It would be a kid’s movie and nothing else if it weren’t Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.
I think we need to redefine ‘star’ if this is your headline. While Kirk was a great character on the show, he was not a star and could have been replaced by anyone. I believe his issue is with the Studio and not Netflix. Placing blame like this on someone outside of the studio is disingenuous and ignorant.
Although he is sort of a “name” now because of his role in the Guardian of the Galaxy movies, and who his brother is. So, when he’s saying something, he gets attention.
He is in Guardians do to Nepotism from his Brother, his Brother who likely got paid more to make the DCU then Iger for returning to save Disney.
But apparently there is no rage at Actors or Directors making 400x the average worker, only CEOs.
This is the biggest problem for entertainment in general. Star or famous are terms that have been overused and diluted to being meaningless. People don’t even really understand what those terms means anymore. There are so many supposedly “famous” people walking around because they have followers on this or that social platform. None of them are really famous though, like people used to be. If you showed me the picture of a top influencer, I wouldn’t know them. They aren’t a star or famous like people from old Hollywood. People worldwide used to know famous actors because there were so few of them, and with good reason. Few people really have that it factor to really make a show or movie pull in audiences. These days there are so many shows, movies, and avenues of generating media to be consumed that it’s destroyed the concept of fame and stardom. I don’t know of a young “it” person in TV or movies that pulls people in watch them anymore. Not to put the blame on them entirely though, as the quality of the content being made has dropped considerably since it’s so mass generated now. Everything has become about quantity over quality.
I’d be more inclined to listen to this argument about Hollywood aristocracy if the man making it was not getting nepotism hires by his brother who almost assuredly got a 9 figure deal to make the new DC cinematic universe.
Bob Iger joined ABC in 1974, he worked his way up from sweeping up sets to the CEO, then got acquired by Disney and climbed to CEO, he then oversaw the most successful period Disney has had, bringing in Marvel, bringing in LucasFilm, then he quit, and 2 years later Disney begged him to come save them.
And yet now he is the villain for getting paid an amount that rivals what the big name actors on the Marvel movies his company creates. You simp for Scarlett going after Disney for only paying her $20M for a movie that flopped, yet you rage at Iger for making $27M as the returning savior! There is no logic in your socialist rage.
Boohoo. Poor little actor, whose net worth is more than the average American makes in a lifetime, is crying about not getting enough money. Actor’s shouldn’t strike. Just like ballplayers, nobody wants to hear about how bosses are unfair to millionaires. You don’t work, you act, you entertain. Don’t tell me how hard it is, it’s just not.