2023-05-08 16:45:29
The American writers’ strike, as expected, quickly turned from a local Hollywood issue into a story with global implications. There is a high probability that the expectation of new seasons of world-famous TV shows will be delayed at best. And among the “victims” there are already big hits.
The other day it became known that work on the fifth season of the series “Very strange things” was actually stopped. The Duffer Brothers, the show’s main writers, supported the strike and filming is not possible at this time.
“Very strange things” are filmed according to a not quite standard scheme. Filming usually begins with a script already written, but the Duffer brothers often finalize the story as they go along. In their account, the scriptwriters wrote that they remain in touch with the series team, but shooting is impossible until the end of the strike.
At Marvel Studios, work began on rebooting the Blade film franchise, but here, too, the producers had to freeze the process, and so far there is no talk about the timing of the start of filming. Activity also froze on the set of the new seasons of the series Cunning, Hornets, Cobra Kai, Big Mouth and Abbott Elementary School.
The producers of the MTV Movie Awards may have to look for another host, because actress Drew Barrymore, who previously agreed to participate in the event, refused to go on stage, thus expressing her solidarity with the striking writers.
TV presenters Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and John Oliver can probably count themselves among the victims of the strike after their programs were suspended. However, they all support the writers, and not only with words. TV stars have paid for the rent of the van and are offering free fast food to the strikers.
For screenwriters, a strike is already a well-established technique. The current protest of this kind is the sixth in a row.
The longest strike took place in 1988 and lasted 153 days. The longer the protest, the more tangible it is for the film and TV industry. Everything that happens at this stage can be called only a minor adjustment of the work associated with the transfer of filming from spring to autumn. And if the big studios wanted to minimize their costs, then the writers’ strike is even good for them.
But if the protest lasts more than four months, then the studios will have to revise the premiere schedule. Thus, the projects that were planned to be released before the end of this year will be presented only in 2024, the premiere schedule of next year will also change accordingly, which means direct losses.
The strike of screenwriters can hardly be called a hurricane that has flown in, as if from nowhere. A similar course of events was predicted by many against the background of the fact that the dissatisfaction of the script writers has been constantly growing in recent years.
In a civilized film and serial industry, there is a term “deferred income”. We are talking about additional payments to actors, directors and screenwriters, depending on the global profit of a film or series. However, the emergence of streaming has changed a lot not in favor of the authors. Now even feature films often go directly to streaming, bypassing cinemas, and thus the deferred income for many has simply disappeared.
Another very acute problem could be the desire of many studios to work with screenwriters as freelancers. That is, invite them to a certain project and leave as soon as the authors do their job. However, what flourishes, for example, in Russia is hardly possible in a country of developed trade unions. The Writers Guild of America is using all its influence to demand contractual employment guarantees from producers, as well as various, including deferred, payments.
By all indications, the renegotiation of the contract (this happens every three years) between the Writers Guild and the Alliance of Producers, acting on behalf of the largest studios, streaming platforms and producers of films, series and television shows, could turn out to be very problematic. And so it happened. The negotiators did not agree on quite important positions.
Representatives of the Guild demanded a specially equipped script room at all stages of work on the project, the involvement of only experienced authors in the work on television scripts (thus blocking the opportunity to take the first ones that came across) and strict control over the use of artificial intelligence. All these demands did not suit the representatives of the producers, and as a result, a strike began.
In this situation, the participants in the process seem to be clearly divided into authors who want justice, and soulless capitalists, from whom you cannot knock out an extra cent. In fact, those who are called soulless capitalists are now not in the best financial shape and simply cannot afford much.
Not everyone in the industry has recovered from the pandemic. Shooting series for the new big platforms has become more of an investment for the future for producers than a quick buck. In addition, large studios themselves cut their employees, as happens, for example, at Walt Disney.
The writers’ strike has a fairly accurate financial rationale. According to the Guild’s calculations, the contract, in a favorable form for it, can bring authors almost $430 million annually. If you agree to the proposal of the producer alliance, then the income will be reduced by more than 340 million, and this is exactly the money for which the writers intend to fight tooth and nail.
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