Not even Tom Cruise could prevent the SAG-AFTRA strike

As we all know by now, Tom Cruise may be able to drive a motorcycle off a cliff and climb the Burj Khalifa, but he cannot convince a studio
executive to consider making less than $27 million a year.

With Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One and its very long title now in theaters, it’s finally time to reveal the tale of the impossible mission Tom Cruise could not accomplish: Stopping the SAG-AFTRA strike. Per The Hollywood Reporter, the man who saved Hollywood’s ass and loves his popcorn Zoomed into negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). However, he could not land the plane.

Cruise reportedly lobbied the AMPTP on several issues, urging the assortment of studio representatives to listen to the guild’s positions on A.I. guardrails and stunt performers. He also asked the guild to consider allowing performers to participate in promotional campaigns for upcoming projects, which Hollywood Reporter sources described as “uncomfortable.” According to Deadline, his interest in promotion had nothing to do with Mission: Impossible, as that film’s rollout ended ahead of the strike. Instead, he was concerned about the post-vaccine return-to-theaters initiative that he’s been instrumental in promoting and argued that actor promotion matters to box office results—which eagle-eyed readers might recall as being the point of the strike.

SAG-AFTRA is striking over a litany of issues, particularly on raising residuals on streaming content and A.I. usage. Though, during the strike’s announcement, SAG-AFTRA’s description of the AMPTP’s asks were nothing short of ghoulish. SAG-AFTRA national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said studios were offering a single day’s pay in exchange for a digital scan of background actors’ likeness for indefinite use in future projects without further compensation or consent. The union’s president, Fran Drescher, described them as “greedy.”

“We are being victimized by a very greedy entity,” SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said upon the strike’s announcement. “I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us. I cannot believe it, quite frankly, how far apart we are on so many things. How they plead poverty, that they’re losing money left and right, when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs. It is disgusting. Shame on them. They stand on the wrong side of history at this very moment.”