Screenwriters' strike: understand what it is!

The writers' strike has been in the news in recent months and has been affecting a lot of things, so how about finding out everything about it and how it affects the audiovisual industry?

If you are someone who uses social media a lot, you have probably heard about the strikes that have been happening in Hollywood and that could greatly affect upcoming productions.

Strikes in general are already known as a movement in which workers in a certain area stop work to obtain better working conditions that they were not able to obtain through conversations and negotiations alone.

But when we talk about a strike involving screenwriters, it may seem like something new, but it is not and this also has a greater weight, as many series and films may be harmed due to the strike, but this does not diminish the purpose of a strike in any way, since that is exactly the objective, for work to be missed.

The writers' strike has been going on for some time now and this ended up triggering the actors' strike and now all of Hollywood is at a standstill and there is still no prediction of when it will return.

If you're still lost about everything that's happening, don't worry, because in today's text we'll explain everything to you, from what the writers' strike and the actors' strike actually are, to how this is impacting and could impact audiovisual productions. 

What is the writers' strike?

Within every work area there is a union that is responsible for all negotiations that those workers may have and they are also the ones who usually fight for better conditions and benefits for that group of people.

The writers union is called the WGA and they are responsible for all writers in the Hollywood industry, and they decided to go on strike on May 2, 2023 and there is still no forecast for a return.

The union's strike came after several attempts to reach an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (also known as AMPTP) and no agreement was actually reached.

AMPTP represents several large studios such as Disney, Universal, Warner and Netflix and the screenwriters were looking for improvements in their contracts, as the industry has changed a lot after the explosion of streaming services that require more content from a screenwriter than when we only had open and closed channels.

This new condition also happened after the arrival of AI (Artificial Intelligence) which has worried screenwriters about being replaced by them, which would be totally absurd.

Why are the screenwriters on strike?

We know what the writers' strike is, but now let's talk a little about why they've been on strike for over 4 months (and counting).

The strike has been happening because there is an outdated status in screenwriters' contracts involving residual earnings and also due to the lack of updating payments based on the country's inflation.

Every screenwriter has an established value for the work that was created for a specific streaming service and channel, but the values were very low compared to the great success that some series have. Many series are sold to several countries and are re-run every year, but the screenwriters do not earn money for this.

A screenwriter can help create a hugely successful series for a streaming service, but they will not receive any profit from any new subscriptions that series brought to the platform or from any products sold using the series or events held using the series, even if they are the creators of that series that originated it all.

Another condition that the Writers Guild wants to change is to put an end to so-called mini writers' rooms, which is a scenario in which several writers are hired to create a project and are dismissed before the project is approved. Under the new conditions, the union is asking for a guarantee of at least 10 weeks of work so that this is valued.

And the union has also been fighting for the amount that screenwriters receive since screenwriters' salaries have fallen by 4% in recent years and considering that there were supposed to be increases based on the country's inflation, this number rises to an absurd 23% drop.

And the WGA has already made it very clear that they will not return from the strike until there are at least some improvements for the writers.

What does the writers' strike affect? 

Many works such as films and series are usually ready a long time before the product is released, so every studio has material ready for the entire year, but the writers' strike greatly affects future productions.

With the shutdown of this group, series and films have to be put on standby and this can affect releases, which is why they have been extending them, as it is reaching the point where the studios will run out of material and this will start to affect the studios' pockets.

A strike like this already happened in 2007 and affected many TV series that had their episodes reduced and caused losses for the TV studios, but they managed to get an improvement in their contracts according to all the work they do.

Hollywood Actors Strike

With the writers' strike that began in May, the SAG, the actors' union, decided to go on strike as well to put more weight on Hollywood studios, so no actor or actress can record, release or talk about any work they have done.

As a result, studios are having to postpone major releases like “Dune: Part 2”, because without the release of the cast, a film could do very poorly at the box office, as interviews and posts on social media cannot even be made.

If the strike is not ended, many series and films will suffer consequences, as many of them still had to undergo reshoots.

Some studios and independent productions are free to continue their productions, as they do not involve as much money as others.

Productions from other countries are also allowed to continue their productions since the union is not the same and if Hollywood artists are part of these productions they are allowed to work as well.

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