'It wasn't going to be a light switch': SAG-AFTRA COO on slow Hollywood reopenings

Yahoo Finance's Alexandra Canal breaks down the latest movie theater reopenings and speaks with SAG-AFTRA Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel Duncan Crabtree-Ireland on how Hollywood is currently faring amid the coronavirus.

Video Transcript

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AKIKO FUJITA: Movie theaters are back open for the first time in five months. AMC, Regal Cinema, and Cinemark all reopening their doors on Thursday, the big weekend or the first weekend this week, but will the moviegoers return?

Let's bring in Allie Canal, who is breaking down that for us. And Allie, you know, there's a number of safeguards that these theaters have taken. But I guess the questions are, people still a little uncomfortable being indoors with so many people for hours watching a movie.

ALEXANDRA CANAL: And that seems to be the big question, right, Akiko? CEO Adam Aron from AMC said that they are taking all of the necessary precautions, that the floor at the theaters are so clean that you could lick them. Personally, I'm not going to do that right now. But this is a big deal for the theater industry that has just been bleeding money amid the coronavirus.

We saw AMC partially reopen some of their theaters yesterday, about one sixth of their circuit. That's about 100 theaters nationwide. They're hoping to reopen an additional 400 to 600 theaters between now and September 3. September 3 being that big date when Christopher Nolan's "Tenet" will officially be released. Besides just AMC, we have partial reopenings today from both Regal and Cinemark.

Right now, obviously, there's not that much new content to be had. So in the meantime, theaters are going to really rely on classics from the past, like "Avatar," "Star Wars," "Interstellar." There is one movie that is out, "Unhinged" starring Russell Crowe will also be available for viewing. So it's still a wait-and-see approach.

Adam Aron did say that basically all of the theaters that have reopened so far did sell out yesterday. There were images of little kids in their masks running around with their popcorn. But I still think that there is going to be an uphill battle for the theater industry.

Right now if we take a look at the stock of AMC, it is down almost 4 percentage points, despite the reopening. Although I do want to mention that at yesterday's close, it was up nearly 6%. Cinemark, meanwhile, is still barely holding onto those gains. At yesterday's close, they were up over 11%, so they really saw a big jump there.

But today, they're not even up 1 percentage point yet. So again, I still think there is a long road to go for these theater industries. But September is really the month that they are targeting so that, you know, people are going to go out there and hopefully see these movies, and hopefully Christopher Nolan's "Tenet" is enough to get people off of the couch and into the movies.

AKIKO FUJITA: And Allie, to your point, theaters may be back open now, but new content may be slow going, especially given how slowly films and TV shoots have resumed production. Let's bring in Duncan Crabtree-Ireland. He is SAG-AFTRA's Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel. He joins us from LA tonight.

Duncan, you're in LA County where they green-lighted the resumption of these productions with safeguards in place back in June. So we're a few months down the line here. How much filming has actually resumed?

DUNCAN CRABTREE-IRELAND: Well, there's a-- I mean, it's really been ramping up pretty rapidly. I think we all understood it wasn't going to be a light switch. It wasn't like-- production turned off like a light switch, but it wasn't going to turn right back on like a light switch.

There was a lot of work that had to be done to make sets safe for performers and crew to come back. And also, a lot of these productions involve a lot of pre-production activities and a ramp-up to get them rolling again. So there are a significant number of productions going in Los Angeles County, but it's not like what we would normally expect at this point in the year. And so-- so that's still an ongoing process.

ALEXANDRA CANAL: And Duncan, to that point, there has been a lot of talk about filming internationally. We have "Jurassic World," and now we have the "Matrix 4" all filming overseas. But what potential impact could that have on domestic filming locations like LA, New York City, Atlanta, Georgia, that heavily rely on US filming to fuel their economies?

DUNCAN CRABTREE-IRELAND: Absolutely. I mean, there's always been a lot of international production. And so large productions have traditionally been done outside the United States. We haven't detected an unusual increase in filming outside the United States.

And in fact, there's a lot of concern about production happening outside the United States because of the volatile nature of the situation with COVID and the pandemic. Cast and crew don't want to end up stuck somewhere and unable to come home. They don't want to be separated from their families for long periods of time.

So I think there's a balance that's going on there. Obviously, there are some places in the world where they are in better shape than we are right now with respects to COVID, but I think we've all learned that those things can change very rapidly. And so production is happening outside the US, but I expect that production will be happening inside the US similarly to-- to the pre-pandemic scenario in terms of the share that's happening in each of those places, so.

ALEXANDRA CANAL: And right now in the US, Congress is at a standstill when it comes to passing its next coronavirus stimulus package. If and when that does happen, what are you hoping is included in the new bill to address the needs of the entertainment industry, specifically?

DUNCAN CRABTREE-IRELAND: Absolutely. One of the things that we're really hoping will be addressed is what-- what's called a mixed earner problem. And this is where people work both as a 1099 worker and also as a W2 employee. And the problem is the way the current relief has been structured, if you make a little teeny bit of money as a W2 employee and a lot of money as a 1099 independent contractor, that little bit that you earn as an employee basically prevents you from getting the kind of unemployment relief that other people would be getting in terms of the pandemic assistance, et cetera.

So we've asked the White House, we've asked Congress to please do something to fix this problem. Because the fact of the matter is, there are a lot of people in our industry and in other industries who work in nontraditional ways, and they need to be taken care of too. I'm not talking about rich celebrities, or big movie stars, or anybody like that. I'm talking about working actors who are struggling to pay their bills, to keep the lights on, to pay the rent. And so they really need that help, and I hope that Congress and the White House will take action to fix that problem.

AKIKO FUJITA: What about something like an insurance fund? We've seen the UK, for example, pass that for the film industry. It's certainly sort of paying for the costs of the closures and helping these productions get back up and running. Do you feel like the US is going to have to compete with some of those funds in other countries? And does that draw attention away from film shooting here in the US?

DUNCAN CRABTREE-IRELAND: Well, that's a real necessity, and the federal government and the state governments all have a role to play in that. And the real problem, this particularly impacts the independent film and television industry because obviously, the major studios, they may need this, too, but they have a lot of financial resources to draw on. If you're an independent producer, you-- it's really hard to-- to get that kind of investment committed without some kind of insurance to assure that there's going to be a place to fall back on in the event that production has to stop due to a COVID incident.

And it seems likely the only way that's going to happen, the only way insurers are going to be willing to step up and play that role that they've played in the past is if there is some kind of stop-loss program or some kind of backup that would be done by either the federal or state governments. I've heard that there's a state government coalition that's looking at this, as well as possibly at the federal level. And we really hope that some progress is made there so that independent production can be protected and can continue to grow in the United States.

AKIKO FUJITA: Duncan Crabtree-Ireland from SAG-AFTRA, appreciate your time today, and our thanks to Allie as well.

DUNCAN CRABTREE-IRELAND: Thanks. Thanks for having me.