Can series and movies stop? Hollywood Writers Strike Q&A

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Professionals went on strike this Tuesday (2) for better pay. Hollywood sign, in the United States Globo Repórter/ Reproduction Hollywood film and television writers went on strike this Tuesday (2nd), after the failure of negotiations for salary increases with production studios such as Walt Disney and Netflix. The stoppage can immediately stop recording TV programs such as variety talk shows. Who’s organizing the writers’ strike? What are the writers’ claims? How did the strike go? What will happen to the series and movies? Have the writers already gone on strike? The strike is carried out by the Writers Guild of America, the WGA, and was approved in April. This will be the first time that professionals have been on strike in 15 years, with more than 11,000 workers involved. Check below what is known about the strike: 1. Who is organizing the writers’ strike? The walkout is being organized by the Writers Guild of America (WGA), the union to which most screenwriters in Hollywood belong. In all, according to the Reuters news agency, the WGA represents 11,500 professionals. 2. What are the writers’ claims? The strikers mainly demand an increase in wages and greater receipt of profits generated by streaming productions. According to the Reuters news agency, professionals say they face difficulties with stagnant salaries and that changes with streaming have made it difficult to live in cities like Los Angeles and New York. Members of the US Writers Union protest outside Fox studios in November 2007 REUTERS/Chris Pizzello/File Photo Half of TV series writers now work on minimum wages, up from a third in the 2013-14 season according to WGA statistics. Median pay for screenwriters at the highest writer/producer level has dropped 4% over the past decade. Another claim is in relation to artificial intelligence. According to Reuters, the WGA wants guarantees that studios are prevented from using artificial intelligence to create scripts from the writers’ old works. They also want to make sure they aren’t asked to rewrite draft scripts created by the AI. 3. How did the strike happen? Over the past month, the WGA has tried to negotiate the best terms with the Motion Picture and Television Producers Alliance (AMPTP), which represents entertainment giants Comcast Corp, Walt Disney, CBS, Viacom, Time Warner Inc. and Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. One of the main points of disagreement, according to the AMPTP, would be the WGA’s request to hire a specified number of writers “for a specified period, whether they are needed or not”. Another debated issue is the salary of professionals who work on streaming series, which remain available for years on platforms such as Netflix. Currently, screenwriters have a fixed annual pay, even if their work has a big hit like “Bridgerton” or “Stranger Things”, seen by millions of viewers around the world. The WGA calls for a reassessment of these values, which today are “too low in view of the massive international reuse” of these programs. Without an agreement, the writers approved the stoppage through a vote made on April 17th. According to the newspaper “New York Times”, the measure was approved by 98% of more than 9 thousand voters. 4. What will happen with the series and movies? The first impacts will be on variety talk shows and sketch comedy attractions with “The Tonight Show” and “Saturday Night Live”. In these cases, the scripts are written on days close to the exhibition, many times, even on the same day, and therefore, they must stop being exhibited. The strike is not expected to hit series and film productions immediately. Most attractions currently already have a longer break between seasons or scripts already written. However, if WGA and AMPTP do not arrive and the outage continues, it may affect and delay the return of programs. Movies still have a longer release period. Still, if the strike continues, titles that are scheduled to be released between 2024 and 2025 could be affected. 5. Have the writers already gone on strike? Yes. Between 2007 and 2008, WGA writers took a 100-day walkout. Networks aired reruns and more reality shows, while the cost of the shutdown to California’s economy was estimated at $2.1 billion, according to the Milken Institute. In 2017, the union also voted for a strike. However, an agreement on the last day of the contract prevented the stoppage.

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