A strike by British actors demanding profit sharing deals like those of their US counterparts became a possibility yesterday after talks with film producers reached an impasse.
Although the news sent a shudder through an industry already braced for a much more damaging American stoppage next month over the same thorny issue of "residuals", both sides say they do not want a strike.
British actors are paid a flat fee in advance for these residuals: video and DVD sales and TV broadcasts of films they appear in. The payment on broadcast or use of the film starts from £22 a day, depending on how many days they worked on a shot.
American actors, however, get an extra cut of the profits if a film is successful.
The actors' union, Equity, said last night it was unhappy with the way that talks with Pact, the producers' alliance, had reached a deadlock and said the gap between US and British pay rates was unacceptable.
Equity's assistant general secretary, Andy Prodger, said it was unfair that American actors working in the UK on predominately British productions received residual payments while British actors did not. On Mission Impossible "$1.8m [£1.3m] has been paid to the small number of American actors who appeared in the film, but not a penny has gone to any of the the British artists".
Even if talks break down altogether, it could be six months before any industrial action is taken. The sequel to the first of the Harry Potter films could be hit.
Mr Prodger, however, conceded that very few of those British films lucky enough to get a distributor broke into profit quickly, if ever.
Bertrand Moullier, of Pact, said he was confident the dispute could be resolved within the six-month deadline. "There is no need for people to get nervous. Negotiations are ongoing, and we are hopeful we can reach a sensible settlement to this."
But Mr Prodger said: "We're hoping to get a positive response before the end of the six months, but if it doesn't happen we would have to advise our members not to accept contracts.
"We don't want to strike, but we are very serious about getting a fair share of the profits."
The threatened Screen Actors Guild strike in Hollywood has effectively halted new projects there. It had been hoped that British studios could take advantage of the actors' strike and also the American screen writers' strike, due begin next week, by tempting producers to move lock, stock and barrel across the Atlantic. But the prospect of a British strike, however slight, would not encourage this.
In any case, the exodus from Hollywood has so far failed to materialise.
The worst case would be if the American actors' dispute were to spill over into Britain. Equity has indicated that its members would go out in sympathy if the studios tried to relocate films that were already set up to be shot in the US.
But industry analysts think there is little danger of this kind of escalation, as the studios do not want to be caught in a double whammy between antagonised actors and writers, never mind opening a fresh front with another union across the Atlantic.
