George RR Martin has shared his thoughts on the simultaneous WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes that have effectively shut down Hollywood.
The combined strike by actors and screenwriters is over issues such as better pay, residual payments, and protection from the use of artificial intelligence.
In his latest blog entry, Martin, author of the Game of Thrones series upon which the hit HBO fantasy series was based, remarked that the WGA strike “is the most important of my lifetime”.
“No one can be certain where we go from here, but I have a bad feeling that this strike will be long and bitter. It may get as bad as the infamous 1985 strike, though I hope not,” he said.
There were a number of Hollywood strikes in the Eighties. The most notable came in 1988, when in a fight over residual payments for TV shows broadcast in foreign countries, there was a 22-week strike by writers, the longest walkout by the WGA in film industry history.
Martin also told fans that his “overall deal with HBO was suspended” on 1 June, but he still has “plenty” to busy himself with.
He added that “these strikes are not really about name writers or producers or showrunners, most of whom are fine; we’re striking for the entry-level writers, the story editors, the students hoping to break in, the actor who has four lines, the guy working his first staff job who dreams of creating his own show one day, as I did back in the Eighties”.
Martin reassured fans that all scripts forHouse of the Dragon season two, the hit Game of Thrones prequel series, “had been finished months before the WGA strike began”.
“[House of the Dragon] is shot mostly in London (and a little bit in Wales, Spain, and various other locations), which is why filming has continued,” Martin wrote.
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George RR Martin and strikers at the WGA picket line— (Getty)
“The actors are members of the British union, Equity, not SAG-AFTRA, and though Equity strongly supports their American cousins (they have a big rally planned to show that support), British law forbids them from staging a sympathy strike. If they walk, they have no protection against being fired for breach of contract, or even sued.”
The writers room for Martin’s other series, The Hedge Knight, has closed in response to the strike.
Giving an update on his long-awaited novel, The Winds of Winter, Martin said he has been working on it “almost every day”. “Writing, rewriting, editing [and] writing some more,” he wrote. “Making steady progress. Not as fast as I would like… certainly not as fast as YOU would like… but progress nonetheless. It keeps me out of trouble.”
