On Friday, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos announced the creation of a $100 million fund to help those in the entertainment industry who have lost their jobs as a result of production delays and shutdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a press release, Sarandos states:
The Covid-19 crisis is devastating for many industries, including the creative community. Almost all television and film production has now ceased globally – leaving hundreds of thousands of crew and cast without jobs. These include electricians, carpenters, drivers, hair and makeup artists and more, many of whom are paid hourly wages and work on a project-to-project basis.
This community has supported Netflix through the good times, and we want to help them through these hard times, especially while governments are still figuring out what economic support they will provide. So we’ve created a $100 million fund to help with hardship in the creative community.
Most of the fund will go towards support for the hardest hit workers on our own productions around the world. We’re in the process of working out exactly what this means, production by production. This is in addition to the two weeks pay we’ve already committed to the crew and cast on productions we were forced to suspend last week.
Beyond helping workers on our own productions, we also want to support the broader film and television industry. So $15 million of the fund will go to third parties and non-profits providing emergency relief to out-of-work crew and cast in the countries where we have a large production base.
The CCO then states that Netflix will be donating millions of dollars to several entertainment job-related funds, including the SAG-AFTRA Foundation Covid-19 Disaster Fund. Additionally, because Netflix produces content around the world, the streaming giant is attempting to set up similar charitable endeavors in other regions.
Numerous films and television shows have had to halt production as the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps the globe. Netflix alone has been forced to stall production on season two of “The Witcher,” season four of mega-hit “Stranger Things,” and the last season of “Grace and Frankie,” among many others.
Films that have been forced to temporarily shut down include the “Avatar” sequels, the new “Matrix” movie, “Mission: Impossible 7,” and others.
COVID-19, which originated in China’s Hubei province, has infected nearly 330,000 people worldwide, and led to more than 14,300 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) Global Cases map. 97,846 people have recovered.
As several states have initiated orders to close non-essential businesses and have asked that people stay in their homes barring necessary trips, movie theaters have shuttered and major films have been pulled from their original release dates.
In New York alone, COVID-19 has infected more than 15,700 people, which amounts to approximately 48% of all cases reported in the United States, and 117 deaths have been reported in the state, which amounts to 28.6% of total U.S. deaths related to the virus.
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