For five long months since the Writers’ Guild of America announced a strike at the start of May, Hollywood has been at an impasse. That strike – over, among other things, money screenwriters receive (or rather don’t receive) from streaming and the looming use of artificial intelligence in show creation – put a stop to the screenwriting of US studio film and TV dramas, comedies and late night comedy shows. When, in July, the Screen Actors’ Guild joined the writers in striking (over many of the same issues), things really hit a standstill. Only reality TV shows, and a few independent works that received a waiver from the guilds, were able to proceed as normal.
But this week: light at the end of the tunnel. At midnight on Wednesday the writers officially ended their strike, having received concessions on many of the issues they were concerned about. (This despite an unnamed studio exec suggesting earlier this summer that the strike would go on until “union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses” and inevitably gave in. Great prediction!). The widespread hope is that the actors, now with a blueprint for resolving similar disagreements over AI and so forth, will soon follow.
