EXCLUSIVE: Just days after inking a union deal with IATSE for production on Season 3 of Prime Video’s Beast Games, MrBeast and his company find themselves in a stand-off of sorts with the Teamsters.
A tense dust-up this afternoon to try to solve an impasse in negotiations has seen by the Teamsters as over reach. In response the union threatening a strike starting early Friday morning, I hear. Obviously, such a move would bring current production on the Greenville, North Carolina-based $10 million competition show to a halt.
Beast Games paid out union level wages to its crew in Seasons 1 and 2. For Season 3, it looked like more of the same was on the menu from parent company Beast Industries, with a nod from Amazon.
Appreciating that, the Teamsters wanted to solidify the production as a union one.
That codification of conditions was not exactly what MrBeast (AKA Jimmy Donaldson) and team were thinking it seems. So, earlier Thursday, with the good will of the IATSE deal still in the air, the Beasties offered up taking a poll of the affected crew (AKA a card check) to determine if 50% + 1 desired Teamster representation, a labor insider tells Deadline.
The Teamsters side of Local 391 and Hollywood’s Lindsay Dougherty-run Local 399 balked at the perceived move into their territory. The whole thing seemed to go south rapidly, with a 6 AM deadline thrown down as a marker.
Neither Beast Industries nor Local 399 responded tonight to Deadline’s request for comment on what is going down at the production. However, with the hours ticking away, it looks like the parties are engaged presently in a parlay of sorts to perhaps resolve the situation before the morning.
Fact is, there is a very close to home blueprint for all sides to follow — thanks to IATSE.
On May 11, after the union was recognized, Beast Industries and IATSE reached an agreement to cover around 500 crew members on the sprawling Beast Games. Turns out it could be a pretty far reaching deal. Earlier this week, IATSE says that the agreement covers not only Season 3 but “subsequent seasons” – – though nothing beyond a third season has been given the go-ahead by Amazon.
Putting 1,000 contestants against each other in a series of challenges (some more challenging that others, let’s be honest), Beast Games is fronted by co-creator MrBeast.
Despite some legal salvos about conditions on the real life Squid-Game-with-less-fatal-results show, Prime Video quietly but unsurprisingly handed the very well viewed BG a Season 3 renewal not long after the Season 2 debut earlier this year. Cited as a shakedown by Team Beast, a subsequent harassment and retaliation suit by a former Beast Industries social media staffer also hasn’t caused any delay in Beast Games going forward either.
Stay tuned. Get up early.
