The Hollywood strikes are over. Here's when your favourite shows might return

Missed your favourite actors? After nearly four months of striking, they're coming back.

Wednesday's deal between striking actors and studios and streaming services won't immediately restore filming to its full swing. That will take months.

But the tentative agreement — which both sides say include extraordinary provisions — means that more than six months of labour strife in the film and television industries is drawing to a close. Soon, tens of thousands of entertainment sector workers could get back to work. And popular franchises, such as Deadpool, Abbott Elementary and The Last of Us, will be a step closer to returning to screens.

Here's some of what will happen next:

Picket lines are suspended and the only rallies on the horizon are celebratory ones that the actors union is promising will happen.

There are a couple of steps that need to happen before the deal becomes official. On Friday, the national board of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists will review the agreement and could approve it. Then, the agreement's details will be released and the guild's full membership will vote on it.

But when striking screenwriters — who started picketing May 2 — reached their deal in September, their guild allowed writing work to resume before full ratification of the contract was complete.

While it's possible those votes scuttle the deal, the union's negotiating committee unanimously approved the deal and called off picketing.

The exact terms of the deal won't be released until later this week, but a few highlights are known.

The union says the deal is worth more than a billion dollars and they've "achieved a deal of extraordinary scope" that includes compensation increases, consent protections for use of artificial intelligence and actors' likenesses and includes a "streaming participation bonus."

The negotiation arm of the studios also says the deal includes historic provisions. The Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers said Wednesday the "tentative agreement represents a new paradigm."

It said the companies are giving "SAG-AFTRA the biggest contract-on-contract gains in the history of the union, including the largest increase in minimum wages in the last forty years; a brand new residual for streaming programs; extensive consent and compensation protections in the use of artificial intelligence; and sizeable contract increases on items across the board."

Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA's executive director and chief negotiator, told The Associated Press the gains made the long strike worth it.

"It's an agreement that our members can be proud of. I'm certainly very proud of it," Crabtree-Ireland told The Associated Press in an interview.