At the Met Gala in New York on Tuesday, US talk show host and comedian Jimmy Fallon was sombre when asked what would happen if his writers went on strike.
“I wouldn’t have a show if it wasn’t for my writers. I support them all the way … we’ll find out tonight,” he told Variety.
“They’ve got to have a fair contract and they’ve got a lot of stuff to iron out and hopefully, they get it done.
“If there is a strike, I think we’ll go dark … whatever I can do to support the guild,” said Fallon, adding he was also a member of the Writers Guild of America (WGA).
Hours later, after talks with studios and streamers over pay and working conditions failed, Hollywood’s film and television writers went on strike.
It meant The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (screening in Australian on 7Bravo), Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Late Night with Seth Myers immediately stopped production.
All were pivoting to re-runs after being left without their teams of writers to pen timely jokes.
Saturday Night Live also shut down indefinitely.
Television series and movies scheduled for release later this year and beyond could face major delays.
A 100-day WGA strike cost the California economy an estimated $US2.1billion ($3.2 billion) in 2007-08, as productions shut down and out-of-work writers, actors and producers cut back on spending.
Tweet from @Variety
On Tuesday (local time), hundreds of writers flooded the streets outside the gates of the major studios in Los Angeles and New York, as well as their corporate offices, armed with banners and creative signs in a labour dispute around how the streamers are changing show business.
“What would Larry David do?” read one, referencing the Seinfeld co-creator.
“Succession without writers is just The Apprentice.”
Many took to social media to reveal the immediate impact of this strike, including writer and co-creator of Yellowjackets Season 3, Ashley Lyle.
“Well, we had exactly one day in the writers’ room,” Lyle said
“It was amazing, and creatively invigorating, and so much fun, and I’m very excited to get back to it as soon as the WGA gets a fair deal.”
Other shows going dark included Night Court, The Talk, Cobra Kai and Abbott Elementary with more reportedly shutting shop by the hour.
“We hate to strike, but if we must, we strike hard. Pencils down in the Cobra Kai writers’ room. No writers on set. These aren’t fun times, but it’s unfortunately necessary. The moment a fair deal is in place, we’ll get back to kicking ass,” Jon Hurwitz wrote.
“We are asking for very fair compensation, and basically the studios laughed at us,” writer Daniel Talbott said, as hundreds of guild members protested outside the Paramount film studio in Hollywood.
“We are trying to fight for our rights.”
One of the Abbott Elementary writers explained that the show, which is on the American ABC network, will turn up a day later on Hulu, then HBO Max and then Disney+.
“So the amount for a re-air on the network is $US13,500 and the amount you’re paid for that episode being on new media – streaming – is $US700,” they said.
Simpsons writer for the past 30 years, Al Jean, says one reason the writers strike is important is for getting residuals from streaming.
“It’s important for us to get a share of streaming because that’s where the future is,” he told Deadline.
Actors also turned out to back the 11,500 striking writers.
“I support the writers because as actors we are only as good as the writing we get,” said West Wing actor Rob Lowe, picketing with his son, writer and actor John Owen Lowe.
The guild said its leadership unanimously supported the strike, stating: “The companies’ behaviour has created a gig economy inside a union workforce.”
They want changes in pay and the formulas used to compensate writers when their work is streamed, and estimated its changes would cost about $US429 million ($644 million) a year.
Solutions?
Queensland University of Technology creative industries lecturer Dr Ruari Elkington suggests keeping a close eye on how the “emergent use of AI [for example, ChatGPT, AI chatbot software intelligence] will be handled by both sides”.
“The studios can, of course, see massive cost efficiencies in the potential of AI to develop and potentially refine scripts,” he said.
“While this tech is not necessarily new – AI has been informing Hollywood decision making around projects for some time – what is new is the existential threat that writers now feel around how AI might derail what is already a very precarious career.
“The Writers Guild negotiations around how AI is used – and just as importantly credited and seen to be used – will really shape the context of how AI intersects with the commercial use and distribution of creative work in the near future.”
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents studios, said it had proposed “generous increases in compensation” and was willing to increase its offer.
But it said it objected to WGA demands that “would require a company to staff a show with a certain number of writers for a specified period of time, whether needed or not”.
The strike hits Hollywood studios at a difficult time.
Conglomerates are under pressure from Wall Street to make their streaming services profitable after pumping billions of dollars into programming to attract subscribers.
“Writers are crucial,” Dr Elkington said.
“It all starts with the script … and if the script is weak or under-developed, the movie or series will not be able to deliver.
“It’s very, very hard for a piece of screen content that relies on a script to rise above the inherent quality of that script – ‘you can polish the crap, but it will still be crap’, as is often said.”
