After almost 100 days of strike by screenwriters in Hollywood, negotiations between the studios and the feathers of the American film and television industry are due to resume this week, according to their union. The powerful Screenwriters Guild (WGA) and representatives of employers had not spoken to each other since the start of the social movement on May 2.
Since mid-July, the crisis has worsened in Hollywood with the actors going on strike, who are also demanding better pay and guarantees regarding the use of artificial intelligence. With this double social movement, unprecedented since 1960, almost all film and series productions are at a standstill. The studios “contacted the WGA today and requested a meeting this Friday to consider negotiations,” the organization said in an email to its members on Tuesday. “We will come back to you after the meeting to give you more information. ยป
The pressure on studios is mounting, as not only do actors far outnumber screenwriters, but there are also stars in their ranks who can carry the voice of the movement: Sean Penn, Colin Farrell, Jessica Chastain and Susan Sarandon have recently been glimpses on the picket lines. During the strike, actors are barred from promoting new releases, which penalizes many summer blockbusters and festivals, and has already caused the indefinite postponement of the Emmy Awards, the equivalent of the television Oscars originally scheduled for September .
The bill for the strike must also begin to increase. The last social action of 2007-2008, which concerned only screenwriters, lasted 100 days and caused a shortfall of two billion dollars, according to some estimates. Screenwriters are demanding higher salaries and a bigger share of streaming profits. But the studios have so far refused to accept their claims, citing economic pressure from an industry that has become ultra-competitive and the need to cut costs.
Hollywood pens are also protesting the trend of studios cutting back their crews and hiring them for shorter tenures in order to write ever more compact series – six to ten episodes per season in the age of streaming, versus more than twenty on television. Finally, they are calling for safeguards against the use of artificial intelligence, which could be used by studios to generate scripts.
Negotiations between the actors, represented by their union SAG-AFTRA, and the studios and streaming platforms members of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), are still deadlocked. “We haven’t heard from the AMPTP since July 12, when they let us know that they did not want to continue negotiations for some time,” said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, negotiator in head of SAG-AFTRA, at the specialized site Deadline on Wednesday.
