• by Karlene Lukovitz , March 23, 2020

Netflix has created a $100-million fund to support film and TV cast and production staff out of work due to production shutdowns around the world.

Netflix — ones of the largest original entertainment producers —has had to shut down production on “Stranger Things” and many other titles, leaving hundreds of thousands of cast and crew around the world without employment.

In a blog post, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos noted that many of the workers are electricians, carpenters and drivers who are paid hourly wages on a project-to-project basis.

Most of the money will go to “the hardest hit workers on our own productions around the world,” he wrote. “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.”

To support the broader film and television industry, $15 million of the fund will go to third parties and nonprofits providing emergency relief to out-of-work crew and cast “in the countries where we have a large production base,” he added.

In the United States and Canada, that includes donating $1 million each to the SAG-AFTRA Foundation COVID-19 Disaster Fund, the Motion Picture and Television Fund, and the Actors Fund Emergency Assistance, and splitting $1 million between the AFC and Foundation des Artistes.

In other regions where Netflix has large production presence, including Europe, Latin America and Asia, Netflix is working with existing industry organizations to create similar creative community emergency relief efforts. It will announce those specifics next week, he said.