Following a number of productive days on the negotiating desk, Hollywood studios are rising optimistic that they’re getting nearer to a deal to finish the 108-day actors’ strike, in accordance with three folks briefed on the matter.

These folks, who spoke on the situation of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the labor state of affairs, cautioned on Sunday that some points stay unresolved with the actors, together with protections round the usage of synthetic intelligence expertise to create digital replicas of their likenesses with out cost or approval. But different knots had began to change into untangled, the folks mentioned.

SAG-AFTRA, because the actors’ union is thought, had been asking for an 11 % elevate for minimal pay within the first 12 months of a contract, as an example. Studios had insisted that they may provide not more than 5 %, the identical as had just lately been given (and agreed to) by unions for writers and administrators. Early final week, nonetheless, studios lifted their provide to 7 %. By Friday, SAG-AFTRA had eased its demand to 9 %.

SAG-AFTRA didn’t reply to requests for remark. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which negotiates on behalf of the main leisure firms, declined to remark.

In an electronic mail to SAG-AFTRA members on Friday night time, the union’s negotiating committee mentioned, “We completed a full and productive day.” On Saturday, the union despatched a routine reminder about pickets deliberate the approaching week, together with one scheduled for Wednesday at Walt Disney Studios. The sides continued to barter on Sunday.

Last week, studio executives made it recognized — in conversations with filmmakers, brokers, reporters and actors themselves — {that a} deal should be finished (or practically so) by the top of this week, or else units have been more likely to stay darkish for one more two months.

Put one other method, until talks pace up, January could possibly be the soonest that casts (and crews) see paychecks.

Brinkmanship? Of course. It’s a regular a part of any strike. The firms, nonetheless, mentioned they have been merely pointing to the calendar. It will take time to reassemble artistic groups, a course of difficult by the approaching holidays. Preproduction (earlier than anybody gathers on a set) for brand spanking new reveals can take as much as 12 weeks, with films taking roughly 16 weeks. Bake within the time for contract ratification by the SAG-AFTRA members.

More than 4,000 principally workaday actors responded on Thursday with an open letter to their union, saying, “We have not come all this way to cave now.” They added, “We cannot and will not accept a contract that fails to address the vital and existential problems that we all need fixed.”

At the identical time, some stars have pressured union leaders to strategy negotiations with higher urgency. Out-of-work crew members have additionally grown more and more pissed off with the Hollywood shutdown. The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which represents 170,000 crew members in North America, has estimated that its West Coast members alone have lost more than $1.4 billion in wages.

For their half, firms are beneath stress to salvage their spring tv schedules and film lineups. On Friday, Disney delayed a live-action model of “Snow White,” which had been scheduled for March 26, as a result of it could be inconceivable to complete in time. Earlier within the week, Paramount pushed again Tom Cruise’s subsequent “Mission: Impossible” film, together with “A Quiet Place: Day One,” starring Lupita Nyong’o.

The leisure enterprise has been at a standstill for months due to strikes by writers, who walked out in May, and actors, who joined them in July. The writers’ strike was resolved final month, prompting hopes of a speedy decision between studios and the actors’ union. Instead, the method has been gradual.

Talks between the edges restarted on Tuesday after breaking down earlier within the month over a union proposal for a per-subscriber price from streaming providers, which Netflix’s co-chief government Ted Sarandos publicly dismissed as a “levy” and “a bridge too far.” SAG-AFTRA accused studio executives of “bully tactics.”

It is unclear how the streaming challenge may be resolved. But there may be actual hope in Hollywood that individuals might quickly be again to work.

“At this time, we have no concrete information from any studio,” Michael Akins, an International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees official in Georgia, wrote to members on Friday. “But the writing is clearly on the wall that the industry shutdown is in its final days.”

John Koblin and Nicole Sperling contributed reporting.