Column: Why the Hollywood writers strike matters to audiences
What is Hollywood without screenwriters? No characters to play. No scripts to shoot. That’s as fundamental as it gets.
TV and film writers are represented by the Writers Guild of America. With the exception of a few highly paid names, many have seen their careers become untenable in recent years as streaming radically upended the financial model. The people who dream up the shows and movies that we so compulsively watch are struggling to earn a living doing it. As a result, the WGA went on strike last week after the studios rejected many of its contract proposals.
That means no writing is being done for the foreseeable future. It’s unclear how long the strike will last. It could be days. It could be months. Late-night talk shows were the first to go dark, but other shows have also paused production or preproduction on their new seasons, including Netflix’s “Cobra Kai” and Showtime’s “Yellowjackets.”
A new “Game of Thrones” spinoff for HBO has paused its writers room as well, according to George R.R. Martin, who said in a blog post: “I am not in LA, so I cannot walk a picket line as I did in 1988, but I want to go on the record with my full and complete and unequivocal support of my Guild.”
Also not filming are two shows from Apple TV+ pegged to themes that seem awfully ironic considering the real-world context: “Severance,” which is about workers organizing together to push back against an exploitative company, and “Loot,” the Maya Rudolph comedy about a billionaire who comes to realize it’s immoral to hoard wealth.
Even “Stranger Things,” one of Netflix’s biggest shows, has shut down. Here’s how creators Matt and Ross Duffer explained their decision on Twitter:
“Writing does not stop when filming begins. While we’re excited to start production with our amazing cast and crew, it is not possible during this strike. We hope a fair deal is reached soon so we can all get back to work. Until then — over and out.”
That’s not just an act of solidarity. Showrunners are writers, which means they are also members of the WGA alongside the screenwriters they hire. From top to bottom, everyone has experienced firsthand the studios’ budget-squeezing strategies.
Here are some of the issues at play in regards to compensation:
TV writers are paid weekly. Under the broadcast model, that’s usually 22 episodes a season. But for streaming, that number is closer to 8-10 episodes. Earning a living is no longer about landing a job in a writers room and hoping the show is successful enough to be renewed, but the need to land several jobs in a year.
There are fewer jobs to go around because many streaming shows are allocated budgets that only allow for mini-rooms: Fewer writers hired to work for a shorter period of time — and therefore receive less money.
The WGA contract has traditionally outlined minimum pay at different levels, from staff writer (an entry-level position) all the way up to executive producer (which includes the showrunner). The idea is that, as writers gain experience, they are able to work their way up through the levels and see their pay increase — except many writers are forced to repeat as a staff writer over and over again. It’s cheaper for studios that way and it’s a practice that hits Black writers and other writers of color especially hard as they attempt to build a resume.
It used to be standard for writers to be on set (and get paid for it) when their episode films. That’s no longer the case and it’s another cost-cutting measure by streamers. But as many writers point out, writing doesn’t stop once a script is handed in. Any number of changes are made on the day of a shoot because that’s the nature of making TV and film: Unexpected complications arise and a scene needs to be rewritten on the fly. Being on set helps train future showrunners — which is what the studios should want: People who understand the nuts and bolts of it all, so money isn’t wasted because of lack of experience.
Residuals, or payment for the reuse of a credited writer’s work, are also a key issue. Historically, they have been enough to help float writers through extended lulls between jobs, which can sometimes be a year or longer. Currently though, residuals for shows on streaming pay pennies compared with the amounts paid when an episode reruns on network TV. The same issue with residuals also affects film writers, whether their movies are originally made for a streamer or end up there after a theatrical release.
The WGA is also concerned about the use of artificial intelligence to generate scripts. That certainly sounds like a way to eliminate writers from the process altogether — or to justify reducing their fee if they’re instead “cleaning up” what AI has churned out.
Even a hit show is no guarantee of stability. Alex O’Keefe was a writer on the first season of the Chicago-shot FX series “The Bear,” which returns with a new season on Hulu next month.
“Working as a staff writer, I was still broke, still on Medicaid,” he said in a tweet. “The studio wouldn’t fly me out to the writers room in LA, so I worked from my Brooklyn apartment. My heat was out that pandemic winter, my space heater blew out the lights. I worked on Episode 8 from a library.
“All I can say about Hollywood is this: all that glitters is not gold. I won the lottery, and landed a gig on a low-budget show that became a national sensation. ‘The Bear’ was a gift, but in the end, ‘The Bear’ was a gig. And between gigs, I barely survive.”
All of this is happening at a time when studios are boasting profits and CEO compensation is eye-popping in its multimillions. Somebody’s making money. For the most part, it isn’t writers — who also have agents and managers who typically get 10% of whatever they earn.
The studios are represented collectively in contract negotiations by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers — which includes companies such as Disney, Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery, among others. The entertainment industry lost more than $10 billion in share value on the first day of the strike.
The last WGA strike was 15 years ago and according to The Hollywood Reporter, “the fallout of the 100-day stoppage was around $2 billion (or $2.8 billion in 2023 dollars). This time the financial toll may be even greater — and felt faster.”
It’s unclear if this concern is persuasive to studios. On a post-earnings call last week, Paramount President Bob Bakish noted “we have a lot of content in the can” along with a “broad range of reality and unscripted as well as sports, and that is not affected. We can do more in those areas if necessary.”
But if an agreement isn’t made soon, the fall lineup on network TV isn’t going to be ready in time — all those sitcoms and cop shows and hospital shows that reliably draw more audiences than most streaming shows. That’s a problem for broadcasters, who still draw millions of viewers but have been steadily losing ground to streaming.
Here’s why this matters for audiences.
These issues of economic justice mirror labor issues in just about any other industry. Executives rake in obscene amounts while laying off workers. Often, this isn’t about keeping the lights on, but about giving Wall Street what it wants: Not just profits but higher profits every quarter, i.e. “growth,” which sounds less like a business model than a cancerous tumor. For the employees who remain, skyrocketing cost-of-living and inflation have gone unaddressed. That’s not fair play. That’s a blueprint for what we’re seeing right now: Striking workers and a record increase in employees forming unions.
Last week, a small group of United Farm Workers showed up to picket alongside the WGA. Here’s hoping in the future, when other industries are in need of vocal and visible support, Hollywood writers give that same energy and solidarity in return.
There are more contract negotiations the studios will soon have to contend with. Their agreements with the guilds representing actors (SAG-AFTRA) and directors (DGA) are set to expire June 30. It’s possible those guilds may vote to strike as well.
Actors have shown up on the WGA picket lines already to show their support, from Dermot Mulroney to Rob Lowe to “Abbott Elementary’s” Lisa Ann Walter to SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher. Jill Hennessy, who became a household name on “Law & Order” and now stars on “City on a Hill,” joined a picket line and tweeted out a photo with the caption: “Without writers, I’m speechless …”
Earlier this week, brothers Christopher Nolan (“The Dark Knight,” “Inception” and the upcoming film “Oppenheimer,” which he also wrote) and Jonathan Nolan (co-creator of “Westworld”) were on the picket line in front of Paramount Studios.
Notably absent so far are the writers who have also become super-producers — people like Dick Wolf and Ryan Murphy and Shonda Rhimes and Chuck Lorre and Taylor Sheridan — who have multimillion-dollar deals and clout that could be put to use right now.
Similarly, what would it look like if the biggest names in of Hollywood — Tom Cruise, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington, Scarlett Johansson, Leonardo DiCaprio Jennifer Lawrence, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese — showed up on the picket lines as well? Or said to media outlets: Interview me about why these issues are important. In terms of personal net worth and influence, they’ve all reached a place in their careers where they can afford to take that risk.
Despite what’s transpiring in the real world, there’s been a conspicuous lack of union stories on screen over the last decade or so.
We don’t know what happens behind closed doors. But my guess is that writers do want to incorporate unions into the fictional worlds of TV and film. Or write more overt “Norma Rae”-like stories that are entirely about labor organizing. They just haven’t been getting the opportunities.
After all, the corporate antagonists in those stories have a lot in common with studio bosses themselves. Decisions at this level are always deliberate and intentional and a cynic might argue that executives are giving away the game: If they pretend labor issues aren’t a major concern of our current moment, then maybe they can con audiences into believing it too.
Still, the absence of fictional union stories from Hollywood is striking. And the disconnect is getting stranger by the day.
Nina Metz is a Tribune critic
