Industry Insider: The Writers’ Strike, A Defining Moment In Hollywood’s History: Part 3

The Writers’ Guild of America strike has continued for more than two months, causing productions to halt, a static job market, and losses up to an estimated $30 million every day for California’s economy. The reasons behind the strike are simple: in an effort to pursue cost effectiveness, major studios and streamers have progressively restricted the screenwriters' payments, benefits, and creative freedom up to the point where the lack of job security transformed what used to be a relatively safe writing career into a gig-job. On top of this, the introduction of generative AI in the writing process posed an attractive cheap solution for studios, but a degrading, low-quality shortcut for the screenwriters. As both the DGA and Teamsters Local 399 successfully renewed their contract with the AMPTP earlier in June, now the only thing that can tip the scales in favor of the WGA is whether SAG-AFTRA (the actors’ guild) will join the strike in July.

SAG-AFTRA’s contract expired on June 30, but negotiations will continue until July 12. The guild has already approved the strike, thus increasing its bargaining power with the AMPTP. Should SAG go on strike, most television and movie productions in Hollywood would halt - leaders of the guild have already held a call with the major publicists to instruct them on the restrictions that their clients will have to respect should the strike happen, which seems more likely every day.

The prolonged strike is causing some internal friction between union representatives and the showrunners, who saw their productions halted mid-filming. For example, a recent incident involved Ryan Murphy (American Horror Story, Glee, Pose), who had to pause production on three shows, and Warren Light, an East Coast strike captain. In late June, Leight tweeted about rumors that writers on Murphy’s shows would be blacklisted from working on his shows if they didn’t cross picket lines and resumed writing - serious allegations that were immediately put off by Murphy’s team, but were nonetheless harmful to the cohesion of the writers to the cause. After the WGA received a letter from Murphy’s lawyer threatening to sue Light, the latter issued a formal apology and resigned from his position as captain. However, the incident shed light on the stress the strike is causing among the writers themselves.

The support of SAG-AFTRA is essential for the WGA strike to go on. Even in the scenario where SAG-AFTRA will reach an agreement with the AMPTP and leave the WGA to its own means, the strike will probably last until mid to late August. With the support of the other unions, it will probably last up to October, if not even further into the year. In fact, director of the Teamsters Motion Picture Division Lindsay Dougherty commented that the AMPTP collective efforts are now focused on avoiding that the other unions go on strike, and only after they have managed that they will initiate negotiations again with the writers. In early June, she stated:

“Who knows what those negotiations are going to look like, whether they’re contentious or not, or if SAG’s going to complete bargaining with AMPTP by June 30? Until that’s done, we anticipate the AMPTP is not going to even speak to the WGA.”

The strike seems far from its end. According to The Wire showrunner David Simon, studio executives (and Wall Street) will truly start feeling the pressure of the strike only once the lack of new content will result in fewer subscriptions.

“Only until that such time as they start seeing their audiences wobble and see the churn in terms of their subscriptions on the cable and streaming platforms, until they start seeing that go a little bit negative or become static, and realize they’re going to need some more content soon. And I think that means several months on the line.”

However, the strike will affect the balance sheets of the studios only after months. The main driver is the number of subscriptions, which will only decrease after the halt in current productions will delay highly anticipated series and movies - so much so that audiences will stir away from the unsatisfying libraries offered by the streamers. The full extent of the results of the current stop in production will become visible only in a matter of months (if not more than a year).

There seem to be only two possible scenarios ahead, entirely dictated by SAG-AFTRA’s decision. In the first case, if the actors’ guild doesn’t find an agreement with AMPTP, effectively almost all productions would have to halt. As studios are backed into a corner, they may maintain a united front, or one of the majors may detach itself from the others in the hopes of negotiating a better deal and have a jumpstart on resuming productions. In the second scenario, SAG-AFTRA finds an agreement with the AMPTP, and thus the actors can keep working. At this point, the writers would be left on their own - negotiations would go on for a shorter amount of time, but would still be likely to go on until late August.

The magnitude of the effects of the WGA strike is bigger than what may seem. Hollywood’s stance on the topic of generative AI will have a ripple effect on other industries, both creative and non, offering a precedent to other unions in their requests of job security against AI advancements. Moreover, if the writers’ requests are fulfilled, the reinstitution of residuals may lead to higher transparency in the disclosure of viewership data on part of the streamers. Mini rooms could be entirely eliminated or proposed as part of a new full-time contract for writers, who then would be given the necessary benefits and security to work on many projects for shorter periods. Whatever the outcome of the strike will be, its impact will define the course of the entertainment industry in the coming years.