2023-05-02 12:03:37
- Paul Glenn
- Entertainment Correspondent – BBC News
Thousands of Hollywood film and television writers decided to go on strike on Tuesday, following talks with major studios over pay broke down at the last minute.
As for the first time in 15 years, the Writers Guild of America is witnessing the exit of more than 9,000 writers, which is equivalent to 98 percent of the members who have the right to vote, as of midnight.
This may affect Tuesday evening showings, while upcoming shows and films may experience delays.
The union also said the sit-in would begin on Tuesday followingnoon.
In 2007, writers went on strike for 100 days, at a cost of nearly $2 billion.
This time, the writers clash with the Motion Picture and Television Producers Alliance, which represents major studios, including Disney and Netflix; to demand higher wages and a larger share of the profits of the recent broadcasting boom.
The Writers Guild of America said Monday night that the decision was made following six weeks of negotiations resulted in a “grossly inadequate” response to the “existential crisis writers face”.
The main issues in the talks centered around how writers would be paid for shows that often remain on streaming platforms for years, as well as the future impact of artificial intelligence on the writing process.
Unresolved issues
The Writers Guild of America has criticized the studios for creating a “gig economy” that aims to turn writing into a “totally independent” profession.
“For the sake of our present and our future, we have been offered no other choice,” the union declared in a lengthy document, calling for a minimum television staff of 6 to 12 writers per show, as well as a guaranteed minimum number of weeks of work per season.
In their own statement on Tuesday, the Producers Alliance called these two issues their “fundamental points of contention”.
The collective studios had previously said they had to cut costs due to financial pressures, while noting that overall “residual” payments to writers were at an all-time high of $494m (£395m) in 2021.
The Motion Picture and Television Producers Alliance indicated on Monday that they would have been willing to increase compensation and pay the rest of the writers’ rights, had it not been for “the enormity of other proposals that are still on the table and that the syndicate continues to insist on.”
They also rejected a request by the union to ban the use of AI bots in writing or rewriting material, offering instead to hold “annual meetings to discuss technical developments”.
image copyright Getty Images
Evening programs may be the first shows to be affected by the strike
On Sunday evening, Deadline Hollywood announced that it would stop broadcasting evening programs, including: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
Late Night host Seth Meyers voiced his support for the strike on his show Friday, saying, “I feel the strength of writers’ reasonable demands, and as an honorary member of the guild, I am very grateful to have a body that looks following the best interests of writers.”
Alex O’Keefe, writer of the comedy-drama series “The Bear” and member of the union, told the BBC on Monday: “Half of the writers get the minimum wage from the studios.”
He said the creative output of his writing colleagues is better than ever, and is in keeping with the demands of the broadcast era, but writers are being paid less than ever.
“Writers like me, especially young people and black people and people of color and Indigenous people, have brought a whole new wave of creativity to this field, but we find ourselves unable to survive in places like New York City and Los Angeles, where we need to be in writers’ rooms.”
Hollywood’s underclass
Although O’Keefe praises some of the writers who “do a very good job,” he notes that many of the writers of mega-programs are not.
“I wouldn’t classify all writers as poor or broke,” he said, “but I can say I have $6 in my bank account.”
image copyright Getty Images
The Bear TV series stars Jeremy Allen White (second from left, front row)
He said that when he and his co-stars won Best Comedy Series at the Writers Guild of America Awards, he went to the ceremony wearing a suit that friends and family had bought him.
He explained, “I bought the tie on credit, I had no money, and my bank account was negative.”
When he was writing The Bear, he did so from his “small” apartment in Brooklyn.
“The heating system stopped, and I had an electric heater that I would turn on, but sometimes all the lights would go out.”
He added, “I ended up in the public library, writing this show that has now become a huge success and I make a lot of money for some people, for a few individuals, but not for the creative people like me, who gave their hearts and souls to writing characters and stories and moments that you remember.” “.
“So there’s a huge underclass now in Hollywood,” he concluded.
The Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA), which represents nearly 160,000 film and television actors, journalists and radio personalities, and the Directors Guild of America (DGA) expressed their solidarity with the eminent writers.
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